March, 4 2026
Good day Community,
It's the first week of March, which means we only have 2 months before the primaries. It 's always good to stay informed so here is what is up.
At the Campaign Level,
Due to strategic and logistical reasons, I will be moving the canvassing event from Thursday 3/5/2026 at 6pm to Sunday 3/8/2026 at 3pm. Meet me at the Iroquois Library!
At the Community level,
There will be a state wide tornado drill on Mar 4 10:07 AM so when you start hearing the sirens know that nothing is going wrong. This is a good time to talk about tornado safety since we have been getting more and more of tornado watches. Make sure that you are in a secure area with no windows on the lowest floor of your building. Stay safe during the next storm!
At the City level,
In an excellent bit of investigative journalism by the Courier Journal, LMPD is now using much fewer ShotSpotter gunshot-detection microphones, down to about half of their previous amount and is only covering the West End of Louisville. These microphones, which alert police to gunfire, are costing the city $420,000 in contracts. LMPD has publicly stated that ShotSpotter is being used outside of the west end. It is also worth noting that according to a 2022 WDRB investigation LMPD only made 59 arrests out of 14,629 ShotSpotter hits. That is a .004% arrest rate.
When I stand for transparency, this is what I stand for. Why is LMPD not being forward with the drop in coverage? I believe in community safety but perhaps there is a better way to spend $420,000 than to deploy a flawed surveillance system in minority neighborhoods. Part of my plan as Metro Council man is to provide more funding to many essential services. It is inefficiencies like this where I see the money coming from.
I highly recommend the article it is a fantastic read and goes into much more detail than I do here.
At the State level,
A bill was introduced in the state legislature that punishes anyone who comes within 25 feet of a first responder. Senate bill 104 creates a 25 foot buffer zone around first responders and aims to protect them from interference or harassment.
While this seems like a good idea for legislation to protect our local police, the truth of the matter is that many of events that sparked black lives matter were caught on someone else's camera less than 25 feet away from a first responder. The only thing this bill does is reduce transparency on a government body, which runs directly against my campaign. I encourage people to fight this bill by calling their representatives.
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