WASHINGTON — Mayors around the country are in Washington this week to discuss issues facing cities of all sizes, from gun violence to affordable housing.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, now in his second year in office, is one of more than 300 mayors attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting.
“Very focused on what we can do working with other cities, working with the federal government to improve public safety, to build more affordable housing, to address our homeless crisis, to create more economic development,” Greenberg said.
The meeting includes a session on reducing gun violence.
Greenberg has called public safety his top priority. The Louisville Metro Gun Violence Dashboard shows there were close to 150 homicides in the city last year and 135 involved guns.
“I am strongly advocating that the General Assembly give Louisville some local autonomy so we can deal with our unique urban gun violence problem the way we need to deal with it,” Greenberg said. “What would be best is if Congress takes some action in passing some federal laws so all of the states have the same requirements as to who can own guns, who can't own guns. That would be one way that we can help make Louisville and our entire country safer.”
City leaders are also sharing strategies to combat the overdose epidemic, which continues to kill thousands in the commonwealth each year.
Kentucky’s latest report shows overdose deaths in Louisville decreased nearly 12% in 2022 but still accounted for nearly a quarter of all overdose deaths in Kentucky that year.
Louisville has already received some of the $57 million expected over an 18-year period in opioid settlement funds.
“We need to address that crisis head on,” Greenberg said. “We're going to be investing a lot of funds in other organizations and programs ourself, and I'm listening to other mayors from around the country about what they are doing [and] where they've had success in their programs to help address our addiction crisis in our city.”
Greenberg said he met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about funding for Louisville transportation projects. He added he plans to meet with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about opportunities to work with the federal government to bring universal pre-K to Louisville.