News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Algood’s Hope Church Lead Pastor Jason Yarborough says he thinks City Council did not consider all factors before deciding against the closure of Wall Street.
Yarborough said he feels this rendered the council’s decision “short-sighted.” He said the main motivation behind asking for the street closure was safety.
“Just the other day we had someone come down Brotherton Mountian and they ran the stop sign right in front the church, ran the other stop sign and you can only go right or left took out our retaining wall, and landed five feet below in our parking lot, probably 25 feet beyond our retaining wall,” Yarborough said. “So that tells you how fast they were going.”
Yarborough said he thought the concerns with traffic could use a little more context, such as campus events that occurred during the traffic study. He said he also believes the concern that so much traffic would be diverted to Pennock Street is not entirely accurate.
Yarborough said he was not sure when would be appropriate to ask the council for reconsideration. He said if he was unable to do so, he would likely return with a request for speed bumps or more stop signs to help address the concerns with traffic safety.
“The decision you all made I completely understand given the facts that you had, but I don’t think you have all the facts,” Yarborough said. “Again I don’t know what’s appropriate for a reconsideration but if we can’t we’ll probably work with Mr. Morrison on some kind of ideas on how to help. Because in our redesign we just want to keep our kids going back and forth from the program. And we’ve always opened up our church to the community so it’s not just our church kids it’s your kids too.”
