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March 7, 2025 • 13 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Always a privileged to be with Mayor Craig Greenberg. He
joined just about every two weeks and I appreciate you
joining us today, mister Mayor.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Great to be here, Tony. It's finally getting warmer.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
So I have been alerted that we have had a
major crime element get a problem, shall we say, from
breaking the laws, let's talk about them.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah. I'm really proud of the work that our LMPD
officers are doing in this case. They've been working with
federal officials, the US Attorney alcohol AATF the federal officials there,
and then we have been cracking down on some of
the gang violence that we're seeing in our community. And
just recently we arrested thirteen members of the Victory Park gang.
This is thirteen individuals that were trafficking and drugs, that

(00:47):
had illegal weapons, that were terrorizing neighborhoods. And now it's
going to be their chance to spend some time on vacation,
some serious penalties awaiting them in the federal system. And
I'm really proud we have made maid thirty gang arrests
this year already this year. We need to continue this.
This will help us continue to make Louisville safer city,

(01:09):
crack down on gun violence that's been plaguing our city
too long. We're very serious about this, Tony.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Do you feel like the citizens that have been impacted
by this gang are finally reaching out and saying we
need help.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I think it's a combination of factors. I think that
folks in the community are giving us information to help.
People who live in neighborhoods that are being terrorized by
gangs and other gun violence are tired of it. They're
seeking help, and our LMPD is doing a good job
of getting out there and making these arrests, of finding
the individuals that are responsible, and in cases like this,

(01:45):
working with the federal authorities. We're working with the state
and federal authorities in ways we never have before.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, that's amazing and it's really really great to hear.
And I'm sure they'll probably be more arrest somebody will probably.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
We're going to keep going. I mean there, we are
proud of this work. We're proud of this result, but
this is no cause for celebration. We have a lot
more work to do.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, understand, but that's some good news for our citizens.
I hear. I want to talk to you a little
bit about the state lawmakers advancing a bill with the
TIFF and KFC, can you explain, Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, sure, this is one that I'm really strongly supporting.
When we built the arena years and years ago, long
before I was mayor, it's been a great thing for
our city. Tomorrow there's going to be a great full
young center cheering on the Cardinals on Senior Day as
they get off to the ACC and NCAA tournament. But
one of the challenges of the Arena TIFF is basically

(02:42):
what it did was TIFF as stands for tax increment financing,
which means all the new taxes are most of the
new taxes that are generated are used for a specific purpose,
and in the case of the Arena TIF, they were
used to help build and support the arena, which means
that a lot of we have all these vacant surface
parking in downtown Louisville, very tough to provide incentives right

(03:04):
now because they're within the Arena TIFF. So what this
bill does is it lets us carve out parking lots
and other underutilized properties and create great new projects. So,
for example, right next to Slugger Field, there's been an
announcement made working with the new owners of the Louisville
Bats Diamond Baseball holdings on what has been a parking
lot forever is going to be a two hundred and

(03:26):
fifty million dollar projects that has a couple of hundred
new housing units. It's going to have a hotel, it's
going to have restaurants that can be possible with this
new legislation, and we're looking to do more of that
around downtown Louisville. So I'm excited about it passing out
of the General Assembly on the coming days.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Any pushback by anybody or so far.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I've not heard pushback. It's strongly supported by members of
the Jefferson County delegation. I've been working closely with House
and Senate leadership. They've been supportive of this. So you
can never get too excited knowing that there's a whole
process still ahead of you. But there seems to be
positive momentum on this in the General Assembly.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I hate to say that this seems to be unique,
but I don't think that I've seen this kind of
work between Republicans and Democrats in a long time, you know,
in the state. I've been told Robert Stivers state Senator,

(04:24):
head of the State Senate, Senate, President President, you know,
indicated that you had reached out, and others have said
that you have been going across other states. So Louisville's
not the big boogeyman.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, I thought getting rid of this perceived urban rural
divide in the state against Louisville, all of that, to me,
was was not real, and it certainly wasn't productive. It
wasn't productive for Louisville or the rest of the state.
And so I've been traveling in the state getting to
know the legislators, not just in Louisville that I've known,
but all across the state, and what I found has

(04:55):
been very clear. Regardless of whether you're a Republican, Democratic, independent,
regardless of whether you live in a small rural town
or a big urban city like Louisville. In general, we
all want the same things. We all want our kids
to have the best possible education that we can have.
We all want good paying career path jobs close to home.
We all want pothills potholes filled on the roadways like

(05:16):
we are doing right now. We all want good infrastructure
in general. We all want housing to be affordable for people.
We have so much more in common that we do
a part. So yeah, we're going to disagree on stuff,
but we all within our own families we disagree on stuff.
Let's find the things we can work on together and
move this city in the state forward. That's what we
did last year when we got over a billion dollars

(05:38):
of capital from the state and the General Assembly to
be invested here in Louisville. And that's what we're working
on right now with this arena tip. That's good for Louisville,
it's good for the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky, and we're
just getting started. Next year is a budget year, and
I have high hopes and aspirations for our city and
our commonwealth going into that, and I'm going to continue
working with every member of the General Assembly to move

(05:58):
the city and state forward.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Going to talk more about the potholes, sir okay, coming
up next to news Radio A forty whs. We have
to do traffic right now, News Radio eight forty whas
mare Coreig Greenberg joining me Tony Cruz here on news
Radio A forty whas. Okay, let let's talk a little
bit about the pothole recovery. How are you and everybody
else Tony. Now, we've been talking a lot about potholes,

(06:22):
and we're very focused on that, you know. I mean
this year we had historic snowfall, we had cold weather.
We had eight times that our plows across the streets
of our city compared to zero times in previous years.
So yeah, there are a lot more potholes than there
have been in previous seasons, and we're out there filling potholes.
We've already filled several thousand potholes. Yesterday we kicked off

(06:44):
our pothole blitz. We have five teams of people, thirty
five people a day that are all they're doing right
now is filling potholes across our entire city. So if
there's a pothole that you know needs to be filled,
there are a couple of ways you can let us know.
The best way call three one, let us know where
the pothole is.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
We'll get it filled. You can also hashtag five oh
two pothole on any one of our social media channels
and we'll get it. But calling three to one one
is probably the best way let us know. And our
great team at Public Works, they wear the snow team.
They're now the pothole team. We're going to keep filling
thousands and thousands of potholes for the coming weeks.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
If people missed this, you address the city receiving two
point six million dollars in opioid settlement money. What do
you plan to do with that?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, so, as a part of some large national lawsuits
and then settlements, we're using these settlement funds from opioid
cases to go back into helping people who are addicted
and even better, preventing people from getting addicted in the
first place. Most of us know people in our lives
or in our extended families, lives that have suffered from

(07:50):
addiction and the impacts that that has on the individuals,
on families, on the entire city. So we're working to
help with that. It's also a way to help address
our homeless crisis, because so many people who are on
our streets they are either suffering from addiction, mental health crises,
oftentimes both, and so that's what we're using this money for.
And I'm very proud of the programs that we're putt
into place. You can see the results. If you haven't

(08:11):
been downtown recently, come downtown, Come downtown for the U
of L game this weekend, come downtown for something else.
The downtown of two years ago is no longer.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
There is a Kentucky bill that has pushed for continued
freeze on land use changes in Louisville. What do you
think about it?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Well, that's in a bill called House Bill eighteen, and
that's one of those challenging bills because there are some
things in that bill that I don't support, Like what
you just said, I think that that should the land
use should be left to our local officials, myself and
Metro Council to decide what they are. But there are
some also some really positive things in that bill that

(08:51):
help but encourage and provide incentives for more and denser
housing within the urban core of our city, which is
what we're trying to really focus on building up. So
there are some things in that bill that I strongly support.
There's some other things that I'm not supportive of. But
what's most important is that we continue to grow. We
continue to have a foundation for growth in our community,
so we can bring the cost of housing down for

(09:13):
hard working families. We have places for people to live
as we create new jobs in our community. So that's
what I'm working on.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I like the way you think, but sometimes it feels
like I live closer around the Blank and Baker Lane issue,
and there's been already just tons of apartment buildings, new
construction around there, and all of a sudden, it's really,

(09:41):
you know, become like what happens in urban settings, you know,
just so much traffic. The traffic can't.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Even And that's the concern that we've heard from folks
that live out in the eastern part of our county.
And I understand our city long before I was mayor,
we never proactively built the infrastructure before the growth, and
so you have lots of places in the east and
the southern parts of our city where houses are springing
up along windy, hilly, two lane narrow roads, and I

(10:10):
understand the challenges there. And so that's what this bill
that you're talking about is trying to get at to
make sure that we have the needed infrastructure to support
new housing.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, we'll see how it goes. And of course, you
know they're around Jeffersontown. You've already got multiple facilities there,
you know, buildings, manufacturing, and.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
We're mostly focused on when it comes to density of development.
We're focused in the urban core of our city and
sort of inside the water sin where the infrastructure is there,
and along the corridor. There's great opportunity for new housing
along Dixie Highs Highway right on Shelbyville Road, for example,
where this infrastructure already is, where the tark buses can
get to. That's where we want the denser development. And

(10:54):
then we understand, you know, more single family homes as
you get further away from the corridor. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
I want people to live and I want them to safety. Right,
affordable housing real quickly speak on which giveten what's going
on right now?

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, so the investigations continue. Eventually the property, you know,
the manufacturing facility that will be demolished and torn down.
We're working with the neighbors on what the next chapter
of that property is. I can tell you it will
not be a manufacturing facility. There are a lot of
other things that are far more appropriate for that property
than a manufacturing facility in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

(11:28):
Whether it's more housing, whether it's a park, whether it's
we want to hear from the neighbors on what they
think it should be of course, Giveden owns that property.
We need to work with them, but it will not
be a manufacturing facility.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
I can tell you that, do you believe they're going
to remain here at another location.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
That is their decision to make. It's certainly not going
to be at that location. I can tell you that
that is not an appropriate location for a manufacturing facility.
Manufacturing facility should not be right up against residential neighborhoods.
And so if they stay here, it needs to be
somewhere that that is not near housing. And if they
go somewhere else, I understand.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Just a final question, just as a result has that,
do you have more eyes looking at situations where there
may be those kinds of situations where there can.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Be you know what we're focused on. We're focused on safety.
Whether you're next to a residential neighborhood or whether you're not.
You still have employees working in your building, and businesses
need to make sure that they uphold all the safety
standards for their employees, for their customers, for the entire community.
And so that's what we're really focused on enforcing in
our community is safety.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Appreciate your time as always good.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
I'll see everybody out at Saint Patty's Day pray tomorrow
three o'clock. You're the announcer. I'll be marching and go
cards on Senior Day tomorrow. Have a great weekend, telling.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Them about Pat Kelsey, what they're doing there and those
those young men.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's amazing. And the women also got a great win
last night.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, over Stanford, so we up to them tonight. Good
to see miss Mayor. Thank you so much. Thank you
Kevin Trager for helping us out here. I got to
get to a break. We're coming back with more on
news Radio eight forty. The Whas
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