Community survey on police chief search extended to July 17

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (July 2, 2020) — Mayor Greg Fischer today announced that the Chicago-based consulting firm Hillard Heintze, a Jensen Hughes company, will perform the comprehensive, top-to-bottom review of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) that he called for last month.

“It is clear we need to reimagine what policing looks like, and that includes taking deep, hard looks to see what’s working well, and what we can be doing better,” Mayor Fischer said. “Our next permanent police chief will be responsible for ensuring that LMPD’s policies, procedures and structure align with the goals and values of our entire city, and this review will be a vital tool in ensuring a complete understanding of the department’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Since its inception in 2004, Hillard Heintze has helped dozens of public safety and law enforcement agencies at all levels of government, and is among the nation’s leading public safety consulting firms. Among its high-profile work, Hillard Heintze helped drive the critical advancements in policing called for in the Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21^st Century Policing: Transparency, Accountability, and Better Community Engagement. The U.S. Department of Justice chose Hillard Heintze as the sole provider for the Community Oriented Policing Services Office Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance — the largest U.S. program to advance police transformations and reform in cities and universities across the U.S.

In Louisville, the review will focus on a number of areas, which may include training in use of force and bias-free policing, as well as accountability, supervision, community engagement, and other topics. The review will also identify any obstacles in implementing changes to improve those areas. 

Hillard Heintze will be active in gathering community feedback to ensure substantial interactions with community members, interest groups, prosecutors and defense attorneys and LMPD personnel. “Public safety is a community production, and it’s key that the opinions and needs of the community, police and partners are understood as we move forward,” the Mayor said.

Chief survey extended        

 Also today, Mayor Fischer announced that the community survey for residents and the internal survey for LMPD personnel to share their priorities for the next permanent police chief will be extended through Friday, July 17. Nearly 9,000 people have completed the online version of the survey, which can be accessed by clicking here. Residents can also call (502) 528-3543 from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. through Friday to participate. They will be assisted by call-takers who will input their answers to questions on a community survey, which has been available online since early this month.

“I’m encouraging everyone in our community, especially those who feel strongly about police policies, to participate in the process to hire a new permanent chief by calling or completing the online survey,” Mayor Fischer said. The city has contracted with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based police research organization, to conduct the search. 

In addition to the survey, PERF and Metro Government are holding listening sessions over the next month with various focus groups across the community. PERF will review and analyze all the information residents provide, to help identify the qualities and characteristics needed for the city’s permanent police chief. They will use that information to conduct a national search and create a list of qualified candidates. Louisville Metro Police officers are also being surveyed.

There will be no interruption to residential garbage, recycling, yard waste or bulky waste collection within the Louisville Metro Urban Services District (former Louisville city limits) on Friday, July 3. Residents who rely on private waste haulers should consult those haulers about holiday collection schedules.

The Waste Reduction Center, our staffed recycling drop-off locations, and the Haz Bin hazardous waste disposal site, will be closed on Saturday, July 4. A map and complete list of the drop-off sites and regular operating hours can be found at our website.

To receive automatic reminders of changes due to holidays, download our Recycle Coach app at the App Store or on Google Play.

One Louisville:  COVID-19 Response Fund

Now there's an even easier option for applying for the One Louisville: COVID-19 Response Fund.

Eligible households seeking assistance can apply online and submit required documentation via a secure portal.

Income eligible households, with a verifiable loss of income - directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic - and a demonstrated need, may be eligible to receive payment assistance up to $1,000 per household.  Funds will be distributed on a first come, first served basis until available funding is expended.

Share a downloadable flyer by clicking here.

LIHEAP Spring Subsidy

LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) Spring Subsidy provides utility assistance to income eligible households of Jefferson County (within 150% of the federal poverty guidelines).

Residents wishing to apply must schedule an appointment utilizing the automated appointment system. Appointments can be scheduled by phone by calling 502-991-8391 or online here. The toll-free service is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The program will operate from now through the end of June 30, 2020, or until funding is depleted, whichever comes first.

Contributions from One Louisville and James Graham Brown Foundation more than double existing funding for summer opportunities

To learn more or to register, go to https://www.summerworks.org/

Author Tina Cassidy will be interviewed by journalist Pam Platt, followed by a book signing of Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the Right to Vote.

Written by Martha S. Jones, a historian, an author and a professor at John Hopkins University.

The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment is a chance to recover less well-known histories of women and the vote. If we take away little else, the suffrage centennial can teach us how the Black women leaders of 2020 – from Stacey Abrams and Ayanna Pressley to Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris – have emerged out of a centuries-long struggle for political power, in movements led by Black women themselves.

The 1913 women’s parade marked a critical turn in the road to the 19th Amendment. Alice Paul and the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) set aside older models of women’s politics that relied upon persuasion, partisanship and patronage. In their place, parade organizers placed confrontation front and center. The women seized the national stage – on the eve of a presidential inauguration no less – and put their bodies on the line in what turned out to be a raucous scene: Suffragists clashed with their critics and the curious for all the nation to see. Behind the scenes, Alice Paul and her collaborators in Washington had inherited the anti-Black racism that had always run through suffrage associations. When given her opportunity to remedy how white supremacy threatened to taint her parade, Paul faltered. She evidenced neither clarity nor conviction and the message to Black suffragists was clear. On March 3, they would not be excluded. Nor however would they be welcomed. A pointed awkwardness ran through the day’s events as a few dozen Black women took their places among thousands of marchers. The women stepped into a new phase of the suffrage movement, but they failed to leave racism behind.

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News and Upcoming Events:

The world keeps changing, and the League will continue to work to make democracy work in whatever ways are needed in the world after the pandemic. To many of us, the festive celebration of the League’s 100th anniversary in February already seems like a distant memory, a pleasant but hazy moment from another era. Like everyone else, we have been pausing and, out of necessity, putting things off; regular committee meetings and other gatherings have been postponed. But we remain hopeful, especially about two important upcoming event(s):

The November 12 celebration of the Louisville League's 100th anniversary. We have planned a luncheon downtown at the Seelbach hotel, which was the site of early meetings that resulted in the creation of the Louisville and Kentucky Leagues. Our speaker for the celebration is scheduled to be Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins, a key figure in the national League’s history. She served two terms, from 1998 to 2002, as the League’s first and only African-American president. She is a university professor, a civil rights leader, and author of “The Untold Story of Women of Color in the League of Women Voters.”

The year 2020 will mark the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment which gave women the right to vote and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

The Frazier History Museum, The League of Women Voters, and The Louisville Metro Office for Women will work with more than 100 community partner organizations to coordinate Louisville’s celebration of these two milestones in women’s quest for the vote. Here are some upcoming events for you to attend, participate in, and celebrate with us!

The Frazier History Museum’s exhibition “What is a Vote Worth?: Suffrage Then and Now” examines Kentucky’s unique role in the fight for suffrage and places Kentucky’s suffrage movements within the context of the national movement, while exploring the specifics of our state’s particular journey, its stars and its villains, its triumphs and defeats. The exhibition also explores what suffrage looks like today.

The exhibition is now on view through spring of 2021. For hours and more information visit, https://fraziermuseum.org/.