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Department heads addressed the LaFayette City Council with updates on city projects and requests. 

The council decided to renew Avenu Insights’ contract for another year. The company handles the processing of business licenses and renewal services for the city. There have been discussions in past meetings and work sessions about bringing the service back in-house by hiring a city employee to oversee business licensure. Louis Davidson, the city clerk, said the time to renew or cancel the program has arrived. 

“I definitely think that [bringing it in-house] is a good idea but once again, we’re at the time frame. We’re not prepared,” Davidson said, advising the council to renew Avenu’s contract. “It’s a one-year contract. It’s kind of the same term that before again, we’re not necessarily happy with it, but we are where we are.”

Work sessions over the summer were held by the council in order to write a job description and hire an employee to handle the business licensing, however, the process stalled. 

Chairman Terry Mangram said, “When are we going to do what we need to do to get our license back into cities?” asked Mangram. “I mean, we have been prolonging this long, long, long time, are we going to wait another year and be in this same situation?”

The council agreed to plan more work sessions to discuss the hiring of a new position for the service, however, due to the time limit they approved renewing Avenu’s contract for another year. 

The other item of business Davidson presented was to ask the council to sponsor a member of Leadership Chambers County. Davidson, a board member of the organization, asked the city to pay the fees, $500, for a city employee to enroll in the year-long leadership program. 

Davidson suggested Amy Tucker in the clerk’s department. Council member Tammie Williams asked other department heads to nominate their employees who may be interested in the program. The council voted to approve sponsoring Tucker as well as allowing other departments to suggest candidates for sponsorship.

Superintendent George Green presented the quote for guardrails on Hospital Street on Monday night, provided by Alabama Guardrails. Green had presented quotes in Oct. 2023 but the new quote was updated to $29,800 for labor and materials. 

Council member Mike Ellis asked if the price included reflective striping as the area does not have street lighting. Green said he believed reflectors and stripings are included in the quote. The council unanimously approved a motion to move forward with the quoted work. There was no time frame given on when the work would be completed in the quote.