Hannibal City Council removes parking from part of Edwards St.

HANNIBAL, Mo. — A portion of a narrow street that has long caused troubles for emergency vehicles traveling through the area will no longer have street parking.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Hannibal City Council approved a request from Councilman Charlie Phillips to make Edwards Street between Fulton and Guernsey a no parking zone.

“It’s just too narrow even for one-sided parking under any circumstances,” Phillips said. “It’s unpassable. It’s about a 40 percent grade. It’s a dangerous and narrow road, and it needs to be done.”

City Clerk Melissa Cogdal, who grew up on Edwards Street, shared personal experience of the struggles emergency personnel have in getting to homes on the street.

“My father’s house burned to the ground because we had issues getting fire personnel up there,” Cogdal said. “That was many years ago, but the parking issues continue. It’s rough.”

The council also approved Mayor Barry Louderman to draft a letter of support to keep Lakeside Technology Park as a designated Missouri Certified Site.

“This is both a due diligence process and a marketing opportunity for the site,” Hannibal Regional Economic Development Council Executive Director Maria Kuhns said.

The park was first certified in 2013 and was recertified in 2019. Kuhns outlined what recertification entails and how it draws more attention to the site.

“Whenever site selectors or interested manufacturers are looking at the site, having that certification means that all of that due diligence and all of those pieces of the puzzle that they were wondering about when they were thinking about buying this site, that’s all already done,” Kuhns said.

This recertification will likely help bring new businesses to Hannibal.

“Not only does this provide a one-stop checkbox for industrial improvement, it also makes us eligible for state level marketing of the site,” Kuhns said.

In other business, the council voted to accept Jamie Whitley’s return of the property at 320-322 11th Street/1010-1012 Collier Street to the city. Whitley previously sold the property to the city, but as Director of Central Services Andy Dorian explained, they found some issues with this sale.

“At the time, they did a title search and everything looked fine and clean. A few months later, I was involved in a research project for something else and I came across a document that showed that it actually was part of the 1993 buyout and we could not sell it,” Dorian said. “We contacted Mr. Whitley, and he agreed to donate back.”

Dorian said the city dodged a bullet.

“You can often find really interesting things with titles and properties in Hannibal,” Dorian said. “We were lucky to catch this one.”

The council also approved a street closure and gave exceptions to the city’s noise ordinance to allow for live music at the fifth edition of Hannibal Bar-B-Q Fest, which will take place at Heartland Field beginning Friday at noon and wrap up at 11 pm Saturday. Local band NOWAKE, Journey tribute band Resurrection and headliners Firehouse will perform Friday, and country music singer Randy Houser highlights the musical lineup on Saturday.