LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Wrapping up his first year in office, Mayor Craig Greenberg, D-Louisville, is reflecting on 2023 while looking ahead to the new year. 

What You Need To Know

  •  Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg reflected on 2023 and is optimistic for what's to come in the new year 

  •  Greenberg said he's finishing 2023 with strong economic growth and pointed to more than $1 billion in capital investments 

  •  Greenberg added he's focused on improving public safety entering 2024 

The mayor’s office said he’s finishing the year with strong economic growth, pointing to more than $1 billion in capital investments. He sat down with Spectrum News 1's David Williams to discuss other important topics, especially public safety. Answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. 

Your campaign championed public safety as a top priority. Now that you are one year in, it looks like the numbers are down slightly. What are you going to do next year to make a bigger dent?

We are going to continue to focus on community policing, where we’re working with neighborhood leaders in the community who are working to prevent crime from happening before it happens. When crimes do happen, we are going to continue to be proactive to resolve those cases. Our clearance rate is up; that means we’re solving more homicides this year than we have in the past. That needs to continue. Part of that is we need 250 more police officers that can help be involved on the streets to prevent crime from happening and that are also more resources to solve the crimes because we know the violent crime in our city is being conducted by just a very few number of people.

We need to make sure that those individuals are brought to justice. We’re also working on programs like group violence intervention. We’re investing more in community center programs and other nonprofits in our parks, in our libraries, so that young people have better paths in life and don’t choose a life of crime.

What can we expect to change in 2024 to repair the relationship between the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) and the community after a splintering Department of Justice (DOJ) report and painful images of things like your officers throwing slushies at innocent people for fun? Is there anything you can say Louisville is specifically doing above and beyond that DOJ report? 

We’re not waiting for the consent decree with the Department of Justice; we are taking action now. Chief [Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel] and I, and the entire LMPD and our administration, is committed to improving LMPD to make it the most trusted, the best-trained, the most transparent police department in our entire country. That is our goal, and that is the plan.

We’re not waiting for the DOJ consent decree to be finalized. The chief, this year, has implemented a lot of new training procedures to improve the training. [There's] a renewed focus on supervision so we can hold the individuals accountable if things happen that we don’t like, in closer to real-time. We’re recruiting more officers and giving them the training and tools that they need to succeed. We’re more involved with the community ... we have the police activity leagues where we’re getting kids involved to meet officers so we can continue to rebuild the trust. 

Regarding the proposed community care campus as a solution to Louisville's homeless problem, what specific realities are we going to see in 2024? When will it be up and running?

When we think about safe and healthy streets, individuals who are homeless and living in camps are not living safe and healthy lives. Just last week, we had a really tragic incident where a homeless individual was killed based on a fire that happened in their tent. There are assaults and other things that are happening in encampments that we do not want to happen to individuals that are homeless, so that’s why we’re investing in more services and shelter.

We’re also investing in more addiction treatment resources, which also is a leading cause of homelessness. [The same goes] for mental health ... we need to do more to have more mental health services to prevent people from going down the path that might lead to homelessness.

Greenberg also said he's excited about 2024, such as helping 3- and 4-year-olds get universal Pre-K. He added his administration is working closely with the General Assembly on state investments in Louisville to help create more economic development opportunities, make the city safer and create more affordable housing.

A press secretary for the mayor's office sent what they deem the "mayor's highlights" of 2023. Some of them are:

Public Safety and LMPD

  • New police chief
  • Significant investments in officer recruiting and retention
  • Opened a new first-responder wellness center
  • Expanded 911 deflection program to all eight divisions
  • New group violence intervention (GVI) director and increased participation in the program

Affordable Housing

  • Released the My Louisville Home plan
  • Groundbreakings on several large, affordable housing developments
  • Acquired land for Community Care Campus and selected VOA as the operator
  • Hired Elizabeth Strojan to lead Louisville Metro Housing Authority

Economic Development

  • Released the Growing Louisville Together plan
  • Hired a design firm to reimagine the Belvedere
  • Sought proposals for highly valuable, metro-owned downtown properties
  • Hosted large events such as music festivals and conventions

Early Learning Action Group

Parks and Libraries

  • Opened Alberta O. Jones park 
  • Launched free Wi-Fi in parks, with additional services to come in January 
  • Fully funded reconstruction of four libraries
  • Secured $12 million from the USDA for improving tree canopy in urban neighborhoods
  • New safety measures at parks such as cameras, lights and license plate readers

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