Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tony Cruz with Mayor Craig Greenberg. How you doing,
Mayor doing wonderful. I'm glad that snow's melting. Looks like
we're going to have some sunshine this weekend if it
can get out and about things are going.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well across the city.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, for those who weren't able to go to the
State of the City address yesterday, what were some of
the highlights for you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, there are a lot of highlights. We have a
lot of great momentum going on all across the city,
and my job is to capitalize on that momentum, build
on it, to continue to transform our city, to change
the way our city government is working, and to make
it better for all of the residents. So we focused
a lot on public safety. That's, of course, our top priority.
In the last four years, shootings are down forty percent,
(00:43):
carjackings down, aggravated assaults down, robberies down. So we talked
about some of the progress we made and some of
the things that will continue continuing to work on to
continue to improve public safety and reduce gun violence. We
talked about areas of improving building more housing, make it
easier to build more housing, to bring down the cost
(01:03):
of housing for residents around the city, the progress that
we're making to address our homeless crisis, and we are
certainly making good progress there with the community care campus
and other areas, and then early learning opportunities for three
and four year olds in the area. I was most
excited about yesterday I was unveiling new conceptual renderings for
the Belvidere. You know, the Belvidere is just over fifty
(01:26):
years old, and Tony, you and I are over fifty.
We know you start sewing some signs of age and
where well, the Belvidere is showing I think far worse
than either you or I. It's cracked, it's crumbled. It
needs a new life. And as opposed to just fixing
the concrete, I want to do something big and bold
and transformative. And so I'm really excited about the plans
for transforming the Belvidere into our city's front yard and connector.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Speaking of which is this a group from England.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The design studio the lead designer is Heatherwick Studio out
of London. They've done some amazing work in the US
and around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We're going to get that cool building that you know,
Twist or whatever that's called.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, they've had some unique things if you look up
the vessel in New York City, Little Island. They did
Google's headquarter building in Mountain View, California, and then they've
done things in Asia and around the world as well.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, the Belvidere, could you use a little pick me up?
And I'm hearing maybe even some dining interest.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I mean, there has to be a reason why this
week people want to go to the Belvidere. You know,
it can't just be a place for spring and summer
when it's the perfect weather. Aut It's got to be
a place that people want to go to all year round.
So you need to have certainly shelter from the elements,
whether that's rain or whether that's too hot. And we're
working on a lot of different things and we're excited
(02:42):
to continue moving forward with that.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You have had a focus ever since I've known and
met you about housing in those kinds of situations. Also
abandoned houses. Yeah, abandoned homes. That's always that's been a
blight for over ten years.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, we're making some progress. One area that we're making
progress is we're doing a better job of clearboarding. You know,
you've seen just in the news the past week or two,
we've had a couple of fires that were started by
people who are living in abandoned homes. You see some
criminal and crime, the criminal activity taking place in abandoned housing.
We're cracking down on that, citing people. Then we're boarding
it up using clearboards, which is better. And the other
(03:20):
thing I'm really excited about is not just making the
abandoned home safer, is turning it into a new home,
a new home ownership opportunity for someone. And so we
started a new program where we are forgiving the leans
that are on those properties so that the properties can
actually be sold and there can be a new homeowner
that hasn't you know, as a new family living in
(03:41):
a good quality of life for themselves and improved the neighborhood.
At the same time, how do you forgive the leans?
Somebody has to pay somebody that didn't get paid, Well,
it's the city. The city's giving up the money. So
we're forgiving the code enforcement leans. So if somebody has
an abandoned property that our codes department keeps sighting for
not complying with the rules, if you're going to buy
(04:01):
that home and live in it and meet certain other criteria.
We're making it easy. The city will say you don't
have to pay those leans.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I've known renters in the past. Some just gave up
their properties or sold them for less than they paid
because the problem was they would have destruction, you know,
time after time after time. Have you heard those complaints? Yeah,
with the tenants.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah. And so you know, we're working on trying to
make sure that all of the housing in our community
is safe, it's of quality, and it's affordable. And one
of the ways you know, we're trying. Sometimes there might
be some instances with tenants doing that. And there's also
some landlords that are just not good landlords in this community,
and we're cracking down on them, just like we're cracking
down for the first time in Louisville. If bars are
(04:46):
not following the law and they're not following the rules,
we're going to shut them down. And that's what you
see we're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Craig Greenberg is our mayor. We've got more to discuss
coming up next on News Radio eight forty whas Mayor
Craig Greenberg is our guest and joining us this morning. Okay,
This has been a couple of weeks ago, but the
Inspector General said that police lied on a search warrant
affidavit and criminal complaint in the twenty twenty two shooting
(05:13):
death of Omari Kryer. I know that you know about
this situation, A very sad situation anytime we have this.
But as you know, LMPD Chief Paul Company called the
allegation scrap and misleading. Where are we now with the
Inspector General and his duties and obviously with Paul Paul, Well.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Let me see you. Thanks for asking about that. Say
a few things about that. First, the Office of Inspector
General and the Civilian Review and Accountability Board has an
incredibly important role to play in this community. Our community
seeks to build continue to build more trust with the
police department, and part of that is ensuring that there
is a civilian board that can review claims that are
(05:56):
brought by other civilians. And so I respect the Inspector General.
I strongly support the Civilian Review Board and their role
that they play in the process. There were some very
serious allegations that were made regarding LMPD, and I have
some serious concerns that some of the allegations in that
(06:17):
were made are not accurate. The Police Department has been
reviewing all of the allegations that were made by the
Inspector General and next week Chief Humphrey will be disclosing
all of their findings into the allegations that were made
and we'll be talking about next steps at that time.
But we are all about transparency and so when mistakes
(06:40):
are made, whether it's LMPD or whether it's other departments,
we need to learn from them and improve. And at
the same time, if there are charges that are made
against people in Louisville Metro Government, LMPD or otherwise that
are not correct, I think it's also important to point
out that they're not correct because it's very easy to
(07:01):
make charges and those first impressions can cause significant damages,
and so if they're not right, I think it's important
that we also have the ability to correct the record.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
When you have the Inspector General saying that a search
warrant Affidavid with false information was involved here, I mean
this goes back to the Breonna Taylor case. You know,
with that that is a very strong statement. Have you
had a discussion yet with the Inspector General.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I have. I've spoken with both the Inspector General and
the Chief about that, and again we'll talk more about
it next week following the chiefs press conference when he
talks about lmpd's investigations into this whole situation.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
We have a new Metro Council president and tell us
what are you looking or so.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
President bren Akerson has been on Metro Council for a while.
He is a dedicated public servant like the other twenty
five members of Metro Council. I have known President Acreson
for a long time. Look forward to working with him
and all the colleagues. There are a lot of new
faces on Metro Council, people from all across the city,
from lots of different backgrounds, Republicans and Democrats. And I
(08:09):
think we have a really good working relationship with Metro Council,
focusing on issues that are important to each of the
Metro Council members in their district, but then also focused
on city wide issues public safety, housing, early childhood learning,
economic development. So I'm excited about the year ahead. You know.
We also have a really great relationship with our partners
(08:30):
in Frankfort, which was something I talked about yesterday. At
the state of the city as well. Last year one
point one billion dollars was invested was committed to be
invested in our city by the General Assembly, and so
I thank the leaders of the General Assembly. We have
an incredibly strong partnership with Governor Basher and his administration,
and so Louisville is well poised to keep moving forward,
(08:50):
to capitalize on this momentum, to keep moving in a
new direction, and we're going to do that in partnership
with people all across the state.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, I'm a kumbayag gay, right, Yeah, I want
politicians to kind of come together, and I have heard
that to affirm your point from many of the Republicans
that you know.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We finally, you know, Attorney, we're all people, whether elected
officials or anything else, people you know, you want it's
fun to get to know people and work with people
who you can find common ground with. And we don't
all have to agree. That's okay. There are lots of
things that we're going to disagree on. But when you
can work together on the things that you know, we're
going to move the city forward, that in turn move
the state forward, and that help the people who we
(09:30):
all serve that that really is rewarding.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Your relationship with Russell Coleman seems to be good.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But yeah, that was another thing that we talked about
very well. Have a very good relationship with Attorney General Coleman.
For the very first time in Louisville, Attorney General Coleman,
the Kentucky Attorney General, has put three prosecutors in offices
right here in downtown Louisville in office space that we
provided to him, so that there can be three state
prosecutors working in partnership with our Commonwealth Attorney Jerina Weathers
(09:58):
and her team to secute more violent criminals. I really
want to thank Attorney General Coleman for that. That's just
one example of this partnership that we have with state
and federal at the state and federal level along with
local folks and a gun violence task force that we've
created in the past year.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Okay, you know you're going to be working on a
budget here in a few months, so we're probably already
working on it. With that, what are the three things
that you want to really button up more and more
in the city.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I know that housing's yeah, a few things. First, We've
got to continue to stay focused on public safety. Last year,
thanks to some new ways that we're managing the city's
budget with investing funds and good fiscal management, we had
a sixteen million dollar budget surplus and we invested a
lot of that in public safety matters, including new equipment
in firehouses for the flu of a fire department that
does a great job. So first and foremost is public safety.
(10:53):
We have to make sure that everybody is safe and
feel safe, police, fire, ems, corrections, dispatch, all of that.
At second, want to continue to improve the amount of
houses that are being built across the city, decrease the
number of people who are homeless and living on our street.
You know. On third this might not be the third most,
but I wanted something new that we really need to
(11:14):
start focusing on is what does this AI revolution mean
for our city and how can we improve government services?
How can we reduce the cost of government so people
get a better bang for their buck by using AI
and new technology. These are things that we're starting to
think of. For example, we have a land development code
that's nine hundred something pages long, whatever it is. Using AI,
(11:37):
we can really shrink the length of time it takes
to get permits to move the development process along or
to get any kind of permits. So those are the
types of things we're looking at. Now, how do we
use AI to improve government performance for the people that
we serve, Like, get real ID quicker than that, and
that's a state thing. But I know I'm feel crazy. Well,
(11:58):
I have a real ID. The issue is I want
to have it on my phone. Now. I saw there
like five or six states where you can have your
ID legally on your phone. Oh that's Kentucky's not one
of them yet.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, well maybe we can work that out. Good
to see you, Maryork Craig.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Great to see you Tony. All right, maryor Craig Green,
have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Everybody joining us here on news RADIOA forty whaf sports
coming up next
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tony Cruz with Mayor Craig Greenberg. How you doing,
Mayor doing wonderful. I'm glad that snow's melting. Looks like
we're going to have some sunshine this weekend if it
can get out and about things are going.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well across the city.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, for those who weren't able to go to the
State of the City address yesterday, what were some of
the highlights for you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, there are a lot of highlights. We have a
lot of great momentum going on all across the city,
and my job is to capitalize on that momentum, build
on it, to continue to transform our city, to change
the way our city government is working, and to make
it better for all of the residents. So we focused
a lot on public safety. That's, of course, our top priority.
In the last four years, shootings are down forty percent,
(00:43):
carjackings down, aggravated assaults down, robberies down. So we talked
about some of the progress we made and some of
the things that will continue continuing to work on to
continue to improve public safety and reduce gun violence. We
talked about areas of improving building more housing, make it
easier to build more housing, to bring down the cost
(01:03):
of housing for residents around the city, the progress that
we're making to address our homeless crisis, and we are
certainly making good progress there with the community care campus
and other areas, and then early learning opportunities for three
and four year olds in the area. I was most
excited about yesterday I was unveiling new conceptual renderings for
the Belvidere. You know, the Belvidere is just over fifty
(01:26):
years old, and Tony, you and I are over fifty.
We know you start sewing some signs of age and
where well, the Belvidere is showing I think far worse
than either you or I. It's cracked, it's crumbled. It
needs a new life. And as opposed to just fixing
the concrete, I want to do something big and bold
and transformative. And so I'm really excited about the plans
for transforming the Belvidere into our city's front yard and connector.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Speaking of which is this a group from England.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The design studio the lead designer is Heatherwick Studio out
of London. They've done some amazing work in the US
and around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We're going to get that cool building that you know,
Twist or whatever that's called.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, they've had some unique things if you look up
the vessel in New York City, Little Island. They did
Google's headquarter building in Mountain View, California, and then they've
done things in Asia and around the world as well.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, the Belvidere, could you use a little pick me up?
And I'm hearing maybe even some dining interest.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I mean, there has to be a reason why this
week people want to go to the Belvidere. You know,
it can't just be a place for spring and summer
when it's the perfect weather. Aut It's got to be
a place that people want to go to all year round.
So you need to have certainly shelter from the elements,
whether that's rain or whether that's too hot. And we're
working on a lot of different things and we're excited
(02:42):
to continue moving forward with that.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You have had a focus ever since I've known and
met you about housing in those kinds of situations. Also
abandoned houses. Yeah, abandoned homes. That's always that's been a
blight for over ten years.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, we're making some progress. One area that we're making
progress is we're doing a better job of clearboarding. You know,
you've seen just in the news the past week or two,
we've had a couple of fires that were started by
people who are living in abandoned homes. You see some
criminal and crime, the criminal activity taking place in abandoned housing.
We're cracking down on that, citing people. Then we're boarding
it up using clearboards, which is better. And the other
(03:20):
thing I'm really excited about is not just making the
abandoned home safer, is turning it into a new home,
a new home ownership opportunity for someone. And so we
started a new program where we are forgiving the leans
that are on those properties so that the properties can
actually be sold and there can be a new homeowner
that hasn't you know, as a new family living in
(03:41):
a good quality of life for themselves and improved the neighborhood.
At the same time, how do you forgive the leans?
Somebody has to pay somebody that didn't get paid, Well,
it's the city. The city's giving up the money. So
we're forgiving the code enforcement leans. So if somebody has
an abandoned property that our codes department keeps sighting for
not complying with the rules, if you're going to buy
(04:01):
that home and live in it and meet certain other criteria.
We're making it easy. The city will say you don't
have to pay those leans.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I've known renters in the past. Some just gave up
their properties or sold them for less than they paid
because the problem was they would have destruction, you know,
time after time after time. Have you heard those complaints? Yeah,
with the tenants.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah. And so you know, we're working on trying to
make sure that all of the housing in our community
is safe, it's of quality, and it's affordable. And one
of the ways you know, we're trying. Sometimes there might
be some instances with tenants doing that. And there's also
some landlords that are just not good landlords in this community,
and we're cracking down on them, just like we're cracking
down for the first time in Louisville. If bars are
(04:46):
not following the law and they're not following the rules,
we're going to shut them down. And that's what you
see we're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Craig Greenberg is our mayor. We've got more to discuss
coming up next on News Radio eight forty whas Mayor
Craig Greenberg is our guest and joining us this morning. Okay,
This has been a couple of weeks ago, but the
Inspector General said that police lied on a search warrant
affidavit and criminal complaint in the twenty twenty two shooting
(05:13):
death of Omari Kryer. I know that you know about
this situation, A very sad situation anytime we have this.
But as you know, LMPD Chief Paul Company called the
allegation scrap and misleading. Where are we now with the
Inspector General and his duties and obviously with Paul Paul, Well.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Let me see you. Thanks for asking about that. Say
a few things about that. First, the Office of Inspector
General and the Civilian Review and Accountability Board has an
incredibly important role to play in this community. Our community
seeks to build continue to build more trust with the
police department, and part of that is ensuring that there
is a civilian board that can review claims that are
(05:56):
brought by other civilians. And so I respect the Inspector General.
I strongly support the Civilian Review Board and their role
that they play in the process. There were some very
serious allegations that were made regarding LMPD, and I have
some serious concerns that some of the allegations in that
(06:17):
were made are not accurate. The Police Department has been
reviewing all of the allegations that were made by the
Inspector General and next week Chief Humphrey will be disclosing
all of their findings into the allegations that were made
and we'll be talking about next steps at that time.
But we are all about transparency and so when mistakes
(06:40):
are made, whether it's LMPD or whether it's other departments,
we need to learn from them and improve. And at
the same time, if there are charges that are made
against people in Louisville Metro Government, LMPD or otherwise that
are not correct, I think it's also important to point
out that they're not correct because it's very easy to
(07:01):
make charges and those first impressions can cause significant damages,
and so if they're not right, I think it's important
that we also have the ability to correct the record.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
When you have the Inspector General saying that a search
warrant Affidavid with false information was involved here, I mean
this goes back to the Breonna Taylor case. You know,
with that that is a very strong statement. Have you
had a discussion yet with the Inspector General.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I have. I've spoken with both the Inspector General and
the Chief about that, and again we'll talk more about
it next week following the chiefs press conference when he
talks about lmpd's investigations into this whole situation.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
We have a new Metro Council president and tell us
what are you looking or so.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
President bren Akerson has been on Metro Council for a while.
He is a dedicated public servant like the other twenty
five members of Metro Council. I have known President Acreson
for a long time. Look forward to working with him
and all the colleagues. There are a lot of new
faces on Metro Council, people from all across the city,
from lots of different backgrounds, Republicans and Democrats. And I
(08:09):
think we have a really good working relationship with Metro Council,
focusing on issues that are important to each of the
Metro Council members in their district, but then also focused
on city wide issues public safety, housing, early childhood learning,
economic development. So I'm excited about the year ahead. You know.
We also have a really great relationship with our partners
(08:30):
in Frankfort, which was something I talked about yesterday. At
the state of the city as well. Last year one
point one billion dollars was invested was committed to be
invested in our city by the General Assembly, and so
I thank the leaders of the General Assembly. We have
an incredibly strong partnership with Governor Basher and his administration,
and so Louisville is well poised to keep moving forward,
(08:50):
to capitalize on this momentum, to keep moving in a
new direction, and we're going to do that in partnership
with people all across the state.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, I'm a kumbayag gay, right, Yeah, I want
politicians to kind of come together, and I have heard
that to affirm your point from many of the Republicans
that you know.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We finally, you know, Attorney, we're all people, whether elected
officials or anything else, people you know, you want it's
fun to get to know people and work with people
who you can find common ground with. And we don't
all have to agree. That's okay. There are lots of
things that we're going to disagree on. But when you
can work together on the things that you know, we're
going to move the city forward, that in turn move
the state forward, and that help the people who we
(09:30):
all serve that that really is rewarding.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Your relationship with Russell Coleman seems to be good.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But yeah, that was another thing that we talked about
very well. Have a very good relationship with Attorney General Coleman.
For the very first time in Louisville, Attorney General Coleman,
the Kentucky Attorney General, has put three prosecutors in offices
right here in downtown Louisville in office space that we
provided to him, so that there can be three state
prosecutors working in partnership with our Commonwealth Attorney Jerina Weathers
(09:58):
and her team to secute more violent criminals. I really
want to thank Attorney General Coleman for that. That's just
one example of this partnership that we have with state
and federal at the state and federal level along with
local folks and a gun violence task force that we've
created in the past year.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Okay, you know you're going to be working on a
budget here in a few months, so we're probably already
working on it. With that, what are the three things
that you want to really button up more and more
in the city.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I know that housing's yeah, a few things. First, We've
got to continue to stay focused on public safety. Last year,
thanks to some new ways that we're managing the city's
budget with investing funds and good fiscal management, we had
a sixteen million dollar budget surplus and we invested a
lot of that in public safety matters, including new equipment
in firehouses for the flu of a fire department that
does a great job. So first and foremost is public safety.
(10:53):
We have to make sure that everybody is safe and
feel safe, police, fire, ems, corrections, dispatch, all of that.
At second, want to continue to improve the amount of
houses that are being built across the city, decrease the
number of people who are homeless and living on our street.
You know. On third this might not be the third most,
but I wanted something new that we really need to
(11:14):
start focusing on is what does this AI revolution mean
for our city and how can we improve government services?
How can we reduce the cost of government so people
get a better bang for their buck by using AI
and new technology. These are things that we're starting to
think of. For example, we have a land development code
that's nine hundred something pages long, whatever it is. Using AI,
(11:37):
we can really shrink the length of time it takes
to get permits to move the development process along or
to get any kind of permits. So those are the
types of things we're looking at. Now, how do we
use AI to improve government performance for the people that
we serve, Like, get real ID quicker than that, and
that's a state thing. But I know I'm feel crazy. Well,
(11:58):
I have a real ID. The issue is I want
to have it on my phone. Now. I saw there
like five or six states where you can have your
ID legally on your phone. Oh that's Kentucky's not one
of them yet.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, well maybe we can work that out. Good
to see you, Maryork Craig.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Great to see you Tony. All right, maryor Craig Green,
have a good weekend.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Everybody joining us here on news RADIOA forty whaf sports
coming up next
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