Mayor Greenberg announced new positions to join his Mayoral Office

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - After a month worth of work, Mayor Craig Greenberg made his State of the City Address Thursday at the American World Community Center, announcing major changes coming from the Mayor’s Office.

Mayor Craig Greenberg called his first thirty days of work stimulating, challenging and important and talked about new initiatives coming to his office.

He added four new positions to his Mayoral Office, including the Office of Equity, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of Philanthropy and the Office of Immigrant Affairs to the Mayor’s Office with the latter two being introduced in Louisville for the first time ever.

To fill those roles Mayor Greenberg announced Mariana Barzun and Amos Izerimana respectively to lead as Executive Directors.

For Barzun and the Office of Philanthropy, Mayor Greenberg said their first task is to make Universal Pre-K a reality for 3 and 4 year-olds in the city.

Greenberg calls the immigrant community one of the fastest growing communities in the city and wanted to head the department with 15 year Louisville resident and former Burundi refugee Amos Izerimana who shared with his vision for the immigrant community.

“You will see me smiling all the time because I am hopeful and I am resilient,” Izerimana said. “Just based on my story and the community and everything I’ve seen here and have experienced.”

The Mayor also talked about his commitment to stop gun violence in Louisville and described his conversation with lawmakers to be productive in solving some of Louisville’s major issues.

“We talked about some of the key issues facing Louisville like improving public safety, building more affordable housing, addressing the juvenile justice issue, making universal pre-school a reality, investing in our community through economic development activities,” Greenberg said. “They were very productive conversations. We’re not going to agree on everything but that’s okay. We’re going to find areas that we can work on together to make Louisville move forward.”

Mayor Greenberg also got into his current plans in place to expand downtown for tourists, the upcoming Community Care Campus for the homeless population and his plans to connect the west end to the rest of the city.

He said he is committed to visit communities in every part of Louisville in the coming months.