Dear Metro Council Person:
As Board members of the Louisville chapter Of Wild Ones Native Plants & Natural Landscapes, we are writing to express our strong support for the Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District and for the Jefferson County Extension Service, as you review Mayor Greenberg’s proposed budget for 2024-2025.
Much to the disbelief and dismay of the many environmentally aware people in this city, the Mayor has so radically slashed the already low funding to these two agencies that they will have to pull out of Jefferson County. Apparently, the Mayor believes these two agencies do not have a large and diverse constituency of users here, but he would be wrong in that assessment.
You will no doubt be hearing from the many gardeners who have benefited directly from the soil testing and plant disease diagnosis programs these two agencies provide locally. What we wish to share is how the JCSWCD partnered with us before and after this very council passed the city’s new Weeds Ordinance in 2022. This revised ordinance allowed people to grow managed natural landscapes in their yards using native plants without concern for being cited or fined. As you can see from the title of our organization, promoting the benefits of environmentally sound landscaping practices is the primary mission of our national organization with over 100 chapters in 34 states, including our Louisville chapter. Being able to replace lawns with native plant gardens benefits the city by increasing stormwater retention, which in turn controls local flooding, reducing noise pollution and ozone-forming exhaust from gasoline mowers and blowers, by reducing overuse of fertilizers and pesticides which pollutes our streams and groundwater, and by increasing populations of pollinators and other beneficial wildlife here. Passing that ordinance was a win-win for nature, people and the city as a whole.
JCSWCD provided a letter of support for this effort to Councilman Arthur who sponsored the bill. A member of its board, Becca Trueman, gave a presentation to the Council’s Public Works Committee explaining the benefits of revising the Weeds Code. Since the revised code stated that sites with native plants needed to display a sign stating the presence of a native plant garden, the JCSWCD provided those signs for free to those who could not afford a modest donation. To get this initiative off to a fast start, the JCSWCD also created a cost-share program so that people could recoup 80% of the purchase of native plants (up to $100). We in Wild Ones Louisville greatly appreciated this partnership for making our city less polluted and more sustainable by helping our community grow this natural landscape movement here.
The major missions of these two agencies are to help us safeguard soil from erosion and our water from contamination, and promote healthier eating through local agriculture and through private and community gardens, particularly for folks living in FOOD DESERTS. They are located right here in Jefferson County where they can be easily reached by the people, and in turn these agencies can easily reach out to individuals and groups face-to-face. Forcing them to close offices here places an unnecessary barrier between their constituency and the important services they offer.
If anything, these two agencies need MORE funding. They do not deserve to be axed to extinction here by this Mayor’s misguided assumption that they are not important. In his press statement sent to WFPL News, the mayor stated “The people of our city elected me on the promise to lead Louisville in a new direction, toward a safer, stronger, and healthier future for everyone.” Well, if being penny-wise and pound foolish is his new direction, if this new direction dismisses out of hand the contributions of healthy natural areas, yards and community gardens for keeping our people healthier, stronger, and safer, then we are less than optimistic about our future well-being here.
These two underfunded agencies deserve way more RESPECT from this Mayor, who thinks that the welfare of this city is not connected to having experts right here in the county to increase our capacity to sustain our natural resources so that these resources can continue to sustain us for the long term.
Please support the Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Jefferson County Extension Service and provide them with at least the funding they had last year.
Sincerely,
The Board of Wild Ones Native Plants and Natural Landscapes- Louisville Chapter
Dr. Margaret Carreiro, Hart Hagan, Jacquelyn Hawkins-McGrail, Barbara Berman, Lynn Horrar, Julie Speedy