|
Happy Friday! I hope you've had a great week and are getting ready for the holiday weekend. The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays as it brings together many of our neighborhoods with cookouts, parades, fireworks, and more. This year is sure to be especially festive as we celebrate the nation's 250th! For a list of city-wide activities related to this milestone, click here. I hope you'll be able to participate in some of these events.
Last night's council meeting was particularly busy with several key pieces of legislation on the agenda. These included updates to the noise ordinance (an issue I know many of you have concerns with as it relates to loud vehicles), improved regulations related to signs posted on public property, and economic incentives for the baseball stadium entertainment district (turning the parking lot next to Slugger Field into housing, shopping, restaurants, and more).
Most significantly, last night marked passage of the FY27 Budget. This process takes months of work and lots of effort from Metro Council members, Mayor Greenberg's office, and staff on both sides of 6th Street. As Vice Chair of the Budget committee, I am proud of the work that was done this year. To be clear, the budget isn't perfect - no budget ever is. There are lots of things I would have done differently (as I'm sure is the case for all 25 of my colleagues!). At the end of the day, however, the budget is a consensus document that reflects a balance of our collective priorities, not the priorities of any one individual. I think the budget we passed does reflect needs across our community and strikes an appropriate balance of priorities. While we always wish we could do more, we must work within the limited resources we have and cannot be all things to all people. As I often say, nothing in the budget is important to everyone, but everything in the budget is important to someone.
While there is much to get into (I could spend hours writing about the various agencies that were funded), I'll focus my comments first on some general themes from the budget and then pivot to our district. As I have said before, this budget was significantly more challenging than previous years. Federal funds that helped bolster our capital budget in years past are now gone. We are facing cost pressure from wage increases and raw material inflation. Cuts to federal aid programs create additional need, and revenues - while growing - are not growing at the same rate. As such, our first objective was to ensure that we were taking a fiscally responsible path so as not to create a situation where we'd have an unsustainable budget next year that would require service cuts or revenue increases. To accomplish this, we cut more than $6 Mm from the capital budget and refrained from adding structural cost to the operating budget (in the form of additional personnel or long-term contractual obligations). The changes we made mainly provided grant-like support to our partner agencies that are reevaluated every year and can be adjusted as conditions unfold.
After addressing the cost side of the equation, our next objective was to ensure that we continue to fund core governmental functions. These include public safety (both in the form of policing and our anti-violence intervention efforts), tackling housing and homelessness, infrastructure improvements, quality of life investments (like parks, pools, and libraries), and funding partner agencies who do so much of the critical work in our community (like mental health or homeless services) for which metro government is not usually the best provider. We could always do more - fund more shelters, build more parks, open more libraries, invest more in youth programming - but we have to work within the limited budget we have, and I believe we struck an appropriate balance.
Closer to home, there were lots of investments in our district reflective of the priorities you shared through budget comments or at my coffee meetings. First, I am happy to announce that Hounz Lane Park will soon have permanent restroom facilities. This has been the number one ask from park visitors and pickleball players, and I am excited to get this amenity in the park. We will also be constructing a new sidewalk - requested by residents and board members of Worthington Place - north of Ballardsville Road from Worthington Place Drive to the existing sidewalk near Shadow Ridge Apartments to connect residents with all the amenities at the intersection with Chamberlain Lane. On the paving front, we will be repaving all or parts of Angies Way, Charter Oaks Drive, Goose Creek Road, Halifax Drive, Norton Healthcare Boulevard, Old La Grange Road, Stanley Gault Parkway, Tazwell Drive, and Wooded Oak Circle. Also included are numerous sidewalk repairs throughout the district and funding for warning signs on Freys Hill Road at the new pedestrian crossing.
If you have thoughts or questions on the budget or things you would like to see funded in the future, please let me know. Again, I wish you and your family a safe and happy 4th of July and hope to see you at a parade or festival next week! As always, don't hesitate to reach out if my office can be of assistance.
|
