By John Brice
Correspondent
The LaFayette City Council met on Monday, September 23rd of 2024 at the Chambers County Farmers Federation Agricultural Center at the ALFA building in LaFayette. In attendance were Mayor Kenneth Vines, Councilman Terry G. Mangram, Councilman David Ennis, Councilman Toney B. Thomas, Councilman Michael C. Ellis and Councilwoman Tammie B. Williams. City Clerk Louis T. Davidson, City Attorney Joseph M. Tucker, Fire Chief James Doody, Wastewater Plant Superintendent Alan Gleaton and LaFayette Police Department Chief Christopher Trice were also present. The meeting began with an invocation led by Pastor Michael Stiggers Sr. of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church and standard procedures such as roll call as well as approval of the minutes from the previous meeting.
First up on the agenda was District Judge Calvin Milford with a swearing in for the oath of office to newly confirmed Police Chief Christopher Trice. After his swearing in, Chief Trice remarked “Good evening, I am a little bit nervous. I got a lot of people here that are supporting me here tonight. I want to point out a few people that you all might not know, I think Ms. Tammy and Mayor Vines may know. The gentleman in that red shirt, that is my father. That is where I learned a lot of my core values from, hard work from. Seeing him work for the school system for forty-five years. Never complained about it, took care of me and my two sisters. The young lady next to him, that is my mother. She is the one that keeps everybody in line. Next to her is my sister, she defeated cancer. The gentleman everybody knows in the white, that is my pastor.”
He went on to continue “I also want to point out, I got the class of ’96 here, can you all stand up for a minute? Also my son here, little Chris, can you stand up? Last, but definitely not least, my wife is here. She has been my biggest supporter. I also want to thank the mayor and the council members for having faith in me doing this job. I know I have got a lot of work to do, we have got some ground that we have laid out. Me and my supervisors here, tomorrow we hit the ground running.”
Next up was LaFayette Main Street Executive Director DeAnna Hand with a discussion on street pole banner designs for downtown. Hand remarked “Good evening. I just want to formally thank you all for hearing our proposal tonight. Here represented is our Main Street Design Committee who also helps us kind of put this together. Something that we have been talking about, our chairmen Ms. Pam Holloway, Dr. Butch Busby and a lot of main street volunteers and supporters back here as well. Tonight, I have put on the table a project that we have been considering and have been looking at in a lot of other main street designated communities. It is their street, their pole banners that a lot of main street communities do throughout their downtown historic district or their city.”
She went on to continue “I gave you an article that is titled ‘The New Era of Street Pole Banners’. Really, it talks about how not only do the street pole banners preserve the historic character of main streets in our towns, it also fosters community awareness and engagement. So, what we are looking to do with main street is be able to display very elegant, professional street pole banners on the city light posts throughout different events. Different holidays, different celebrations. We are wanting to purchase this through a grant but before we start digging into the grant process and writing the grant we wanted to seek your approval to display these banners throughout the city.”
Summing up her thoughts, Hand concluded “I also gave you a lot of examples that you can look at. We absolutely want to do one for Veterans Day. This will help us honor previous vets that have passed away or been with us and are far from LaFayette. Also, we want to do holiday celebrations. Even have different organizations or nonprofits submit their proposals to us if they want to honor different groups or activities or schools or graduates. It is just something we can do to really individualize, a way to give back to our town, our community and our citizens here. It will also make LaFayette look very vibrant. If you all have been to a lot of other main streets, you will see these pole banners. A lot of them will say ‘Welcome to the City of Opelika’. Then they will do different activities, maybe you have some different spring banners, holiday banners, like I said.”
Following up was a motion approved for a Public Power Week proclamation during the time frame of October 6th through the 12th of 2024 and a roll call vote which approved the motion for the East Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission senior grant program for fiscal year 2025.
Councilman Thomas then took the time to congratulate Chief Trice on his promotion and led a discussion on scheduling a meeting of the utility committee. Superintendent Gleaton briefed the council on the chemical bids for 2024-2025 to supply the water and wastewater collection plants which were then approved by the council at which point the matter of the AT&T pole attachment audit memorandum of understanding agreement was tabled and the meeting was adjourned.
