Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

At the LaFayette City Council meeting on Monday, the council voted yes on two proposals put forward by Councilmember Tammie Williams. Williams suggested a kickball game to support three local children with medical conditions as well as putting up green bows around town in support of Sylvester Williams, a man who plans to walk from California to Florida to raise mental health awareness.

“We have a few children in our city that have been suffering from some illnesses,” Williams said. “And I want to challenge our city council members and our mayor, our supervisors, our chiefs, everybody to a kickball game Labor Day weekend. It’s going to be the city versus the citizens.”

Williams suggested that participants in the game wear team colors representing each child. The color for one child, who suffers from leukemia, is orange. The color for another child, who has heart problems, is red. Finally, the color for the child who has cerebral palsy is green.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but with the help of all the superintendents, the chiefs and our great council members and mayor and our attorney, I know we can bring this together and do a beautiful thing to let them know we are supporting them, wishing them well,” she said. “We want to see them healthy.”

Williams also proposed that the families of the children have booths at the event to raise money for needs such as medical bills.

The kickball game will take place at the Avondale baseball field on Sept. 10. The council didn’t choose a time.

Williams said she believed Sylvester was in Kansas.

“He was incarcerated for 10 years,” she said. “He had mental illness or whatever. And he wants everybody to know that it’s okay not to be okay.”

Williams said the color green represented Sylvester’s effort. She requested that the City of LaFayette put up green bows around town in support of his journey so Sylvester would know that LaFayette supported him.

In other business at the meeting, Ann Gleaton, superintendent of the city water plant, announced bid dates for a Community Development Block Grant project.

“We have received the go-ahead from ADECA for the CDBG grant for the city lake project we’ve got going on,” she said. “So, we started advertising for bids in the paper. We’re going to have pre-bids on July the 12 and the bid opening on July 19 at 2 p.m. both days at City Hall. And then after bids are opened and announced in public, we will bring before the council on the July 25 council meeting for whoever bids on it.”

In an interview, Gleaton said the CDBG grant money would be used to improve the intake screens and piping going from the lake to the pump house.