WHEELING — City officials in Wheeling will hold a public hearing on its proposed Pedestrian and Vehicle Safety ordinance Wednesday night before taking a final vote.

If passed, the ordinance would prohibit interaction between a pedestrian and a person in a motor vehicle situated in a lane of traffic. In essence, the legislation would ban panhandling in the city, casting such an interaction as a safety issue.

Other municipalities across the country reportedly have taken a similar approach to address public concerns about situations involving pedestrians and vehicles. Past attempts to prohibit panhandling in U.S. cities have been shot down by the Supreme Court.

Justices have maintained that “charitable appeals for funds” can be deemed a matter of free speech protected under the First Amendment.

Officials in Wheeling were expected to collaborate with legal departments and city leaders from other major municipalities in West Virginia — including Morgantown, Beckley, Charleston and Huntington — to formulate an ordinance that could be used as a template for cities across the state that have faced similar challenges.

The public hearing on the ordinance is expected to take place at the beginning of the meeting before members of city council hear second and final readings under unfinished business. The Pedestrian and Vehicle Safety ordinance is expected to be heard as part of unfinished business.

Because of Election Day, the first meeting of Wheeling City Council this month will take place on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. The regular meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. Typically, Wheeling City Council meets on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.

Several pieces of new legislation are also expected to be introduced during Wednesday’s council meeting.

An ordinance up for a first reading this week would authorize City Manager Robert Herron to allocate a portion of the city’s West Virginia opioid settlement funds to assist the Wheeling Police Department in providing opioid related abatement.

The request for $40,000 would enable the police department to purchase and be trained to use a Celebrite machine, which would allow officers to extract evidence from cellphones as part of drug-related investigations. According to a memorandum from Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger, evidence contained on cellphones of drug dealers or overdose victims is often critical when it comes to identifying suppliers.

Currently, the process of extracting such evidence from confiscated cellphones involves sending them to a state forensics laboratory for analysis, which typically takes several months. This delay can hinder an investigation.

With the Celebrite system, the process of obtaining this information from cellphones would go from several months to several hours or days.

“One of the biggest causes of criminal activity in the city of Wheeling is drug activity, or crimes to support a drug addiction,” the chief wrote in the memorandum. “Oftentimes, the conversations that are obtained through cell phone extractions are critical, if not the most important piece of evidence to convict a drug dealer. In addition to convicting drug dealers, evidence that is obtained from cell phone extractions can be used to identify individuals who are suppliers, other dealers or involved in other related crimes.”

Earlier this year, the city of Wheeling received $726,000 from the state’s initial distribution of opioid settlement money. Sizable distributions from this allocation were made to the city’s fire department and police department, as well as some local service agencies, for various purposes related to battling the opioid crisis in Wheeling. The city was expected to receive an additional allocation from the state of more than $620,000, which is yet to be distributed.