This and that: Downtown streets around courthouse closed for Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ march

Plus, West Lafayette makes the next move on an early childhood education center along Kalberer Road. WL Golf and Country Club rezoning proposal delayed for a month. And more.

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This and that, a midweek edition …

DOWNTOWN STREETS NEAR COURTHOUSE CLOSED FOR SATURDAY’S ‘NO KINGS’ MARCH

Lafayette streets around and near the Tippecanoe County Courthouse will be closed to traffic Saturday afternoon for a “No Kings” march that will start and end at West Lafayette’s Tapawingo Park.

Lafayette’s board of works approved the street closures Tuesday for an event meant to protest actions by President Donald Trump’s administration. The local No Kings march, followed by music, speakers and food trucks at Tapawingo Park, is one of dozens planned across Indiana and more than 2,000 estimated across the country.

Demonstrators head from the courthouse square in downtown Lafayette to West Lafayette during a No Kings march in June.

Lisa Dullum, a Tippecanoe County Council member and No King organizer with Greater Lafayette Indivisible, said she expected Saturday’s event to “take what we did on June 14 and move it to the next level.” The application for the street closure anticipated more than double the participation from June, with an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people expected to attend.

“We know that the conditions have gotten more dramatic, more drastic,” Dullum said. “So, we’re hoping people will come out and say, Hey, this isn’t right. This isn’t what we want. We have no kings in America.”

Dullum said organizers met several times in the past two months with city officials on both sides of the Wabash River, as well as Lafayette and West Lafayette police and Tippecanoe County Sheriff Bob Goldsmith.

Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said the city agreed to close streets immediately around the courthouse as a security measure and to allow demonstrators to make their way around the courthouse. In June, demonstrators queued up on sidewalks around the courthouse, waiting for pedestrian crosswalk signals to cross Third Street on the way to and from the pedestrian bridge.