Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
News Radio eight forty whas Tony Cruz with Mayor Craig
green Burry. Mayor Craig Greenberg. All was a pleasure, and
I like it when you stop by, man the studio thing.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's great to be here, Tony. Getting out early this morning.
I'm ready for my ten mile run through Iroquois Park.
There's that race tomorrow morning, and I hope the weather
is as beautiful tomorrow morning as it is today.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, my achilles hurts right when you say that. Right me,
you know, I mean I do a little walk run myself,
but that's all I can do. Man. But good for you. Yeah,
when did you start that start running?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I started running when I was in law school, so
it's been about twenty five plus years ago now that
I started running.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Good for you, Well, that's great. Let's talk about some
of the exciting things that First of all, the Downtown
Louisville Revival as you call it. And it's really right
when you talk about the reviv Bull's right, Okay, I
get you. Were you playing off bet or were they
playing off you?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
No? I think we're playing off them a little bit.
They started that first this year. I give all the
credit to coach Kelsey and his team there. What a
season they had. What a season the women had. You know,
that's part of it. When the men and the women's
basketball teams are doing well and more people are coming
downtown for the Young Center and they're able to get
a bite to eat before or afterwards, they see all
the things that downtown has to offer. This was a
(01:16):
great week for downtown. We had some great success in
Frankfort with the General Assembly pass some legislation that's going
to help us get some new important projects underway that
are going to bring thousands of new people downtown. And
one of the things also with the help of the
General Assembly, we announced this week new apartments right next
to Lynn Family Stadium at the soccer Stadium in Butchertown
(01:36):
that's right there, connecting to downtown. There's gonna be a
whole new neighborhood that's going to start to be built
all on those surface parking lots around the soccer stadium.
That's going to be great for our city in an
entire state.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It looks like when you start taking the Slugger Feel project,
I don't know what you call it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Necessarily, I'm calling it the Diamond District right now, we'll
share what everybody else is called, okay.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The Diamond District, and then you know, integrate that along
the newly Ario.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, that whole area is going to all be connected. Booms.
We have new great led lights under the overpass. We've
cleaned those underpasses out. They are no longer dirty and
dangerous and full of encampments. It's well lit, they're clean.
We've provided support and services to the individuals who were
living under those underpasses. So we're doing a lot downtown
(02:25):
with public safety. First. We have three new officers that
are assigned to the downtown Patrol. We have mounted patrol
that Chief Humphrey has put downtown on many nights, and
when there are big events where we at LMPD headquarters
will be back downtown. They'll all be working together in
downtown Louisville by the end of the summer. So between
(02:46):
that and focusing on getting our street lights working, you know,
really ensuring that people are safe when they come down
Sound and downtown is as safe as it's been in many,
many years. As you know, Tony city wide homicides are
down nearly forty percent this year. Shootings are down over
thirty percent this year. We still have a lot of
work to do, but we're making progress.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So to your point Chief Humphrey yesterday saying now that
he has the opportunity, because of fewer murders, to get
more eyes on cold cases.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, we want to do that. You know, we want
to make sure that when somebody commits a crime, particularly
a crime of gun violence, that we hold them accountable.
I was very pleased yesterday that we arrested the individuals
who are responsible for the murder of one of our
corrections officers. That was some very good police work that
helped make that happen. And having more resources to bring
(03:38):
justice to the families that have hurt for so long
is something that we're working to do.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You know, you talk about the lights, just to comment
as I can get here pretty early. Some of these
lights it seems like they're kind of like pinkish orange
or whatever like that, and you can't see people that
are sometimes the kind of jay walker or walk.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
We're trying to install all the new LED lights downtown,
so you give me a couple of examples. I mean literally,
this is unfortunately, because these these lights are not particularly smart.
We rely on feedback to make sure. We're working with
LG to get the changes done. So when we're off
the air, you can tell me where and I'll make.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Sure we improve. But just just because you know, it's
not that I speed or anything like that, but you
know it's a whoa, man, I didn't see that that
person there about the you know where the trash. Yeah,
we're replacing everything with LEDs now right, that's that's great.
And also I don't don't we have the like we're
getting rid of the copper thieves and all that kind
(04:37):
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
We do. We have a new Critical Infrastructure task Force
where just again in Frankfort, at our request, they raised
the penalty. Enhance the penalty so now it's a class
it's a felony to steal copper wire from street lights,
so we enhance that penalty. We have a whole task
force that's focused on that. We just caught some individuals
a couple of weeks ago that we're doing that. We're
(04:58):
trying to work with more with the folks that had
been buying copper to crack down on theft in that area.
That's a big part of the problem. While we have
street lights and I knew there was one other great
downtown announcement that we had this week, Tony, that before
we stopped talking about that is the Playport. If you
go to about thirteen fourteenth Street and rowand just west
of downtown, right on the river. Waterfront Park has expanded
(05:21):
west and next week, I know is spring break in Louisville.
If you have kids in your life, take them to
the Playport. It is an amazing playground. You've not seen
anything like this before. Waterfront Development Corporation, in partnership with
the Science Center did a great job. The city supported
them and provided funding, the state provided funding, lots of
donors did It is a world class experience for kids.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was good to let you mention that because it
was really cool. I mean, of course, you know. I
mean what we want to do is talk about, you know,
what's going on in Louisville. We'll take a break. We're
coming back with more with Mayor Craig Greenberg here on
News Radio Eightporty Whas. I want to go go back
with Mayor Craig Greenberg on the subject the revival from
(06:05):
the University of Louisville, What kind of how much of
the coffeer's got filled up as a result of what
was going on down there.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh, filling the Young Center is huge. I mean just
think about it. If you go from five thousand fans
to fifteen thousand fans that are coming to watch games
twenty nights a week, that's a lot of people downtown
that are going to dinner, that are shopping, that haven't
experienced downtown and say, you know what, this place might
have been too crowded tonight, but I'm gonna come back
down with my friends another non game night. You know,
(06:39):
it was crowded for the women's games. We had three
or four women's volleyball games that were at the Young
Center this year. So it is incredibly helpful for downtown
directly economically and also I don't know, Tony, You're out
in the community a lot. I just feel like people
feel better when Cardinal football and basketball and volleyball and
baseball doing well. I mean, we're having a great baseball
(07:01):
season right now. Coach McDonald is doing a great job
with the baseball team, and so people should go out
and check out their games too. You know, winning has
a positive impact on people's mindset, and it just shows
that's that's important down And I'm a huge supporter of it.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I was concerned. You know, I have friends from the
Troll Pub for example, and O'Shea's and Whiskey Road that
you know a lot of people that you know, we
all know, and you know it was. It was brutal
for a couple of years. It was.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And then combine that with the slugger Louisville Bats starting
their season today. Home opener is tonight, Opening night. You
got loose city. They started their season last weekend. I
was with them and honoring my morning Jacket that's from Louisville,
gave them keys to the city racing. Louisville's now season
has started. This is going to be a wonderful summer
of sports. To continue this positivity, so I would encourage
(07:52):
folks to come bring their families to one of these
great events and enjoy some of the other things that
are going around on around the stadiums in the arena
when come to these events.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Forget me, but I did not know that it was
National Youth Violence Prevention Week. Sometimes I get these emails
on these getting things right. It's not your fault. I mean,
I'm just talking about you know, and you've had a
lot of things going on for kids. How do we
continue that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Well, you know me, one of the sad things about
gun violence in our community right now is how young
the victims are and how young the perpetrators of the
crimes are. And so we're really working on ways to
get to kids early in a very age appropriate way,
to provide them with support that they need so that
(08:39):
the path that they choose in life as they're getting
older is not one that involves gun violence. The last
thing we want is for LMPD to be arresting young people.
We just don't want them to commit these crimes in
the first place. And so we have a great new
executive director of Community Safety, Misty Right. She's from Louisville.
She's a former federal prosecutor in Chica. She knows a
(09:02):
lot about reducing violence through the work that she has
done prosecuting cartels and gangs in Chicago at the federal level.
She's moved back home and she's helping us lead up
a lot of these initiatives to help prevent crime from
happening in the first place. And that takes reaching out
to our young people in elementary school, in middle school
and giving them the tools that they need to make
(09:23):
good decisions. It also means improving the quality of our
education with JCPS, It's one of the reasons why we're
working so hard on early childhood education. It means supporting
organizations like There to Care and the Boys and Girls Club,
and Big Brothers and Big Sisters that are supporting kids
that might not have a strong home life. These are
all things that are important to prevent crimes from happening
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
For those people who don't know that those resources are there,
how do you get the word out? I mean if
they may not be listening to radio or reading the
newspaper or those kind of things. Is that tough?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It is tough. We have through our Office of Safe
and Health Neighborhoods, we have a lot of folks that
are on the streets that are out there working in
neighborhoods to spread the word, that are having programs that
are reaching out to families one at a time to
let them know what resources are there to try to
connect them. You know, as for example, next week's spring break,
we have over one hundred free programs in our libraries
(10:18):
next week, I would encourage families that are staying here
in Louisville for spring break. Go online and look at
Louisville Free Public Library. These are great ways to keep
your kids engaged during spring break, to keep them learning.
We have programs for kids of all ages on all topics.
Over the summer, our parks do great programs for summer activities.
You know, we're always trying to spread the word to
keep kids engaged in active.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Real quickly got about a minute the state legislature. You
went out, you made connections on a bipartisan basis. What's
the returns?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And last year the return was a billion dollars of
investment in our city, including one hundred million dollars in downtown,
two hundred million dollars for the University of Louisville downtown
and on their campus and at the Fairgrounds, and so
much more. This year, the return was new tools to
create more housing in the urban core of our city,
to build more development downtown, and the list goes on
(11:16):
and on. We're ready starting to work today on next
year's budget session because that's going to be a big,
big year for us.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We'll be looking forward to hearing what you have to
say about that. Thanks so much. What do you think
about the cigar bar. Is that okay? I mean the
Metroal Council. Where are you on that?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You know, I'm They're not my personally, it's not my
favorite thing, but I understand there is a demand for that,
that there's a lot of support for that. Our city has.
Hospitality is so important to our community. The tourism industry
is behind it. So that I'm not going to sign
the legislation, but it will become law and here in
a couple of weeks and so those will will be
(11:50):
back in business.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Okay, appreciate your time. Mark Craig Greenberg, News Ready eight
forty whas
News Radio eight forty whas Tony Cruz with Mayor Craig
green Burry. Mayor Craig Greenberg. All was a pleasure, and
I like it when you stop by, man the studio thing.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's great to be here, Tony. Getting out early this morning.
I'm ready for my ten mile run through Iroquois Park.
There's that race tomorrow morning, and I hope the weather
is as beautiful tomorrow morning as it is today.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, my achilles hurts right when you say that. Right me,
you know, I mean I do a little walk run myself,
but that's all I can do. Man. But good for you. Yeah,
when did you start that start running?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I started running when I was in law school, so
it's been about twenty five plus years ago now that
I started running.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Good for you, Well, that's great. Let's talk about some
of the exciting things that First of all, the Downtown
Louisville Revival as you call it. And it's really right
when you talk about the reviv Bull's right, Okay, I
get you. Were you playing off bet or were they
playing off you?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
No? I think we're playing off them a little bit.
They started that first this year. I give all the
credit to coach Kelsey and his team there. What a
season they had. What a season the women had. You know,
that's part of it. When the men and the women's
basketball teams are doing well and more people are coming
downtown for the Young Center and they're able to get
a bite to eat before or afterwards, they see all
the things that downtown has to offer. This was a
(01:16):
great week for downtown. We had some great success in
Frankfort with the General Assembly pass some legislation that's going
to help us get some new important projects underway that
are going to bring thousands of new people downtown. And
one of the things also with the help of the
General Assembly, we announced this week new apartments right next
to Lynn Family Stadium at the soccer Stadium in Butchertown
(01:36):
that's right there, connecting to downtown. There's gonna be a
whole new neighborhood that's going to start to be built
all on those surface parking lots around the soccer stadium.
That's going to be great for our city in an
entire state.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It looks like when you start taking the Slugger Feel project,
I don't know what you call it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Necessarily, I'm calling it the Diamond District right now, we'll
share what everybody else is called, okay.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The Diamond District, and then you know, integrate that along
the newly Ario.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, that whole area is going to all be connected. Booms.
We have new great led lights under the overpass. We've
cleaned those underpasses out. They are no longer dirty and
dangerous and full of encampments. It's well lit, they're clean.
We've provided support and services to the individuals who were
living under those underpasses. So we're doing a lot downtown
(02:25):
with public safety. First. We have three new officers that
are assigned to the downtown Patrol. We have mounted patrol
that Chief Humphrey has put downtown on many nights, and
when there are big events where we at LMPD headquarters
will be back downtown. They'll all be working together in
downtown Louisville by the end of the summer. So between
(02:46):
that and focusing on getting our street lights working, you know,
really ensuring that people are safe when they come down
Sound and downtown is as safe as it's been in many,
many years. As you know, Tony city wide homicides are
down nearly forty percent this year. Shootings are down over
thirty percent this year. We still have a lot of
work to do, but we're making progress.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So to your point Chief Humphrey yesterday saying now that
he has the opportunity, because of fewer murders, to get
more eyes on cold cases.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, we want to do that. You know, we want
to make sure that when somebody commits a crime, particularly
a crime of gun violence, that we hold them accountable.
I was very pleased yesterday that we arrested the individuals
who are responsible for the murder of one of our
corrections officers. That was some very good police work that
helped make that happen. And having more resources to bring
(03:38):
justice to the families that have hurt for so long
is something that we're working to do.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You know, you talk about the lights, just to comment
as I can get here pretty early. Some of these
lights it seems like they're kind of like pinkish orange
or whatever like that, and you can't see people that
are sometimes the kind of jay walker or walk.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
We're trying to install all the new LED lights downtown,
so you give me a couple of examples. I mean literally,
this is unfortunately, because these these lights are not particularly smart.
We rely on feedback to make sure. We're working with
LG to get the changes done. So when we're off
the air, you can tell me where and I'll make.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Sure we improve. But just just because you know, it's
not that I speed or anything like that, but you
know it's a whoa, man, I didn't see that that
person there about the you know where the trash. Yeah,
we're replacing everything with LEDs now right, that's that's great.
And also I don't don't we have the like we're
getting rid of the copper thieves and all that kind
(04:37):
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
We do. We have a new Critical Infrastructure task Force
where just again in Frankfort, at our request, they raised
the penalty. Enhance the penalty so now it's a class
it's a felony to steal copper wire from street lights,
so we enhance that penalty. We have a whole task
force that's focused on that. We just caught some individuals
a couple of weeks ago that we're doing that. We're
(04:58):
trying to work with more with the folks that had
been buying copper to crack down on theft in that area.
That's a big part of the problem. While we have
street lights and I knew there was one other great
downtown announcement that we had this week, Tony, that before
we stopped talking about that is the Playport. If you
go to about thirteen fourteenth Street and rowand just west
of downtown, right on the river. Waterfront Park has expanded
(05:21):
west and next week, I know is spring break in Louisville.
If you have kids in your life, take them to
the Playport. It is an amazing playground. You've not seen
anything like this before. Waterfront Development Corporation, in partnership with
the Science Center did a great job. The city supported
them and provided funding, the state provided funding, lots of
donors did It is a world class experience for kids.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was good to let you mention that because it
was really cool. I mean, of course, you know. I
mean what we want to do is talk about, you know,
what's going on in Louisville. We'll take a break. We're
coming back with more with Mayor Craig Greenberg here on
News Radio Eightporty Whas. I want to go go back
with Mayor Craig Greenberg on the subject the revival from
(06:05):
the University of Louisville, What kind of how much of
the coffeer's got filled up as a result of what
was going on down there.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh, filling the Young Center is huge. I mean just
think about it. If you go from five thousand fans
to fifteen thousand fans that are coming to watch games
twenty nights a week, that's a lot of people downtown
that are going to dinner, that are shopping, that haven't
experienced downtown and say, you know what, this place might
have been too crowded tonight, but I'm gonna come back
down with my friends another non game night. You know,
(06:39):
it was crowded for the women's games. We had three
or four women's volleyball games that were at the Young
Center this year. So it is incredibly helpful for downtown
directly economically and also I don't know, Tony, You're out
in the community a lot. I just feel like people
feel better when Cardinal football and basketball and volleyball and
baseball doing well. I mean, we're having a great baseball
(07:01):
season right now. Coach McDonald is doing a great job
with the baseball team, and so people should go out
and check out their games too. You know, winning has
a positive impact on people's mindset, and it just shows
that's that's important down And I'm a huge supporter of it.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I was concerned. You know, I have friends from the
Troll Pub for example, and O'Shea's and Whiskey Road that
you know a lot of people that you know, we
all know, and you know it was. It was brutal
for a couple of years. It was.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And then combine that with the slugger Louisville Bats starting
their season today. Home opener is tonight, Opening night. You
got loose city. They started their season last weekend. I
was with them and honoring my morning Jacket that's from Louisville,
gave them keys to the city racing. Louisville's now season
has started. This is going to be a wonderful summer
of sports. To continue this positivity, so I would encourage
(07:52):
folks to come bring their families to one of these
great events and enjoy some of the other things that
are going around on around the stadiums in the arena
when come to these events.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Forget me, but I did not know that it was
National Youth Violence Prevention Week. Sometimes I get these emails
on these getting things right. It's not your fault. I mean,
I'm just talking about you know, and you've had a
lot of things going on for kids. How do we
continue that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Well, you know me, one of the sad things about
gun violence in our community right now is how young
the victims are and how young the perpetrators of the
crimes are. And so we're really working on ways to
get to kids early in a very age appropriate way,
to provide them with support that they need so that
(08:39):
the path that they choose in life as they're getting
older is not one that involves gun violence. The last
thing we want is for LMPD to be arresting young people.
We just don't want them to commit these crimes in
the first place. And so we have a great new
executive director of Community Safety, Misty Right. She's from Louisville.
She's a former federal prosecutor in Chica. She knows a
(09:02):
lot about reducing violence through the work that she has
done prosecuting cartels and gangs in Chicago at the federal level.
She's moved back home and she's helping us lead up
a lot of these initiatives to help prevent crime from
happening in the first place. And that takes reaching out
to our young people in elementary school, in middle school
and giving them the tools that they need to make
(09:23):
good decisions. It also means improving the quality of our
education with JCPS, It's one of the reasons why we're
working so hard on early childhood education. It means supporting
organizations like There to Care and the Boys and Girls Club,
and Big Brothers and Big Sisters that are supporting kids
that might not have a strong home life. These are
all things that are important to prevent crimes from happening
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
For those people who don't know that those resources are there,
how do you get the word out? I mean if
they may not be listening to radio or reading the
newspaper or those kind of things. Is that tough?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It is tough. We have through our Office of Safe
and Health Neighborhoods, we have a lot of folks that
are on the streets that are out there working in
neighborhoods to spread the word, that are having programs that
are reaching out to families one at a time to
let them know what resources are there to try to
connect them. You know, as for example, next week's spring break,
we have over one hundred free programs in our libraries
(10:18):
next week, I would encourage families that are staying here
in Louisville for spring break. Go online and look at
Louisville Free Public Library. These are great ways to keep
your kids engaged during spring break, to keep them learning.
We have programs for kids of all ages on all topics.
Over the summer, our parks do great programs for summer activities.
You know, we're always trying to spread the word to
keep kids engaged in active.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Real quickly got about a minute the state legislature. You
went out, you made connections on a bipartisan basis. What's
the returns?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And last year the return was a billion dollars of
investment in our city, including one hundred million dollars in downtown,
two hundred million dollars for the University of Louisville downtown
and on their campus and at the Fairgrounds, and so
much more. This year, the return was new tools to
create more housing in the urban core of our city,
to build more development downtown, and the list goes on
(11:16):
and on. We're ready starting to work today on next
year's budget session because that's going to be a big,
big year for us.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We'll be looking forward to hearing what you have to
say about that. Thanks so much. What do you think
about the cigar bar. Is that okay? I mean the
Metroal Council. Where are you on that?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You know, I'm They're not my personally, it's not my
favorite thing, but I understand there is a demand for that,
that there's a lot of support for that. Our city has.
Hospitality is so important to our community. The tourism industry
is behind it. So that I'm not going to sign
the legislation, but it will become law and here in
a couple of weeks and so those will will be
(11:50):
back in business.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Okay, appreciate your time. Mark Craig Greenberg, News Ready eight
forty whas
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