LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville Metro Council is back in session Monday with two new members who are taking office at a time when the Louisville community grasps with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against systemic racism.
Jecorey Arthur takes over in District 4 after Barbara Sexton Smith decided to not run for re-election. Cassie Chambers Armstrong now leads District 8, taking over for Brandon Coan, who also decided to not run.
Jecorey Arthur and Cassie Chambers Armstrong spoke with WHAS11 about their plans and goals as Metro Council members.
What is it like to finally be sworn in as a Louisville Metro Council member?
Cassie Chambers Armstrong: I'm really excited to really just hit the ground running. I've had a really long transition to get ready for the role because I didn't have a general election, so I spent the past six months doing a lot of the background work of talking to people and batting around ideas. And now I feel like it's really time to start acting.
Jecorey Arthur: It's overwhelming because Metro District 4 is supposed to be the heart of the city. And you can't live without the heart of the city. You can't live without the heart, period. Being able to represent those people, it's an honor but it's also incredibly overwhelming. We have so much work to do.
When you decided to run, we did not know that 2020 would bring with it a global pandemic and protests against systemic racism in Louisville and around the country. What were your goals before everything changed?
CCA: My background is in public health, so initially I was really concerned with how we create a healthy, vibrant, equitable community, and particularly how we use the built environment to do that. Of course those issues are still important, but the lens we're looking at them has changed a lot over the past few months.
JA: It's the same as it related to the pandemic and the protests, and that's another P-word: poverty. We should not have a situation in this city where we haven't seen the minimum wage go up for years on end. We should not have a situation where I was born in '92 and the Black poverty rate has almost tripled since I was a baby. I'm almost 30 now. We shouldn't have a situation where people feel they aren't connected with our city's government. They have no idea what's going on in government.
The coronavirus pandemic has impacted every aspect of our lives, from our health to our livelihoods. What will you make a priority in your upcoming term as it relates to the pandemic?
JA: There seems to be a misunderstanding of how COVID has impacted our city. How is COVID having this ripple effect on the kid who goes to Central High School who is no longer going to in-person classes, who can no longer go to his community center, who can no longer participate in after-school activities when he already had a laughable amount of opportunities as far as that goes anyways?
Well, now he's in a situation where what does he have to do? He might make his own program, and that program might be joining a gang. That program might be getting involved in something that leads us to having this discussion about 170 homicides. And I say this because these are my family members. These are my cousins, my people.
CCA: I think the biggest issue is just figuring out how to start rebuilding, and we can see the end is sort of in sight with the arrival of the vaccine, but we have a long way to go and we certainly have a lot of rebuilding to do.
I think we really need to provide support for the families and businesses that have been hit hard by this pandemic, so looking at things like affordable housing and homelessness. I think we got to make sure we do everything we can as a city to support our small businesses. In my district, it's restaurants along Bardstown Road that have really suffered. And a lot of that is also making sure we're advocating for state and federal aid.
Louisville was the center of many large protests following the police killing of Breonna Taylor last year, which exposed many injustices in the Black community created and perpetuated by systemic racism.
There is a distrust among many in the community when it comes to those in government having their best interests at heart. How do you approach this issue of tackling systemic racism and rebuilding trust with communities that have been hurt for generations?
JA: When it comes to representation, you don't have authentic, true, thorough representation without legislation. And that means I'm going to be here introducing laws that make lives better. And I think it's also important to note as a Black legislator, I'm not just here to write laws, I'm here to right laws, because some of them have been put in place to wrong us, from the way neighborhood advisory boards work to the way that the public nuisance ordinance has really targeted people in the West End, targeted Black folks and kicking us out of our neighborhoods that we've been in for generations.
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