The year began with a group of new faces setting up offices in the City Hall building. Seven Metro Council members took their oath of office in January, including both Louisville’s first self-described Democratic Socialist and the largest Republican voting bloc since the 2003 city-county merger.
Just a few days later, a federal judge questioned the need for federal oversight of Louisville’s police reform effort, signaling the beginning of the end for the city’s consent decree. Eventually, city officials decided addressing issues like excessive use of force and racially biased policing — a top priority for Metro Government and the public since 2020 — is something they’ll try to tackle on their own.
Like police reform, some of the other issues Louisville faced in 2025 were not new. Public safety and gun violence continued to be paramount for the mayor and Metro Council, and there was some good news on that front, however incremental.
Other challenges, such as the proliferation of data centers, seemed to have arrived overnight, leaving city leaders scrambling.
LPM’s City Government and Politics Reporter Roberto Roldan shares his top three stories that highlight some of the new challenges that are likely to carry over into the new year.
Deep cuts to Louisville’s bus network coming in 2026
The Transit Authority of River City, TARC, has settled on a plan to further cut bus service in Louisville.
While the changes are expected to help the agency push back a looming financial crisis for another few years, the new network map represents a 12% service cut on top of the reductions TARC already implemented in 2024.
The cuts to public transit in Louisville present a number of new hurdles the city will have to deal with: They’ll primarily impact residents to rely on buses to get to work, school and appointments. And many of the cities Louisville is competing with for economic projects are expanding, not slashing, access to public transportation.
Louisville officials grapple with how to regulate large data centers
Oldham County instituted a moratorium on new data centers after facing a grassroots backlash for its handling of a controversial project. Now, Louisville officials are facing their own uproar.
Emotions were high at a series of public meetings in October and November. Some residents questioned why a proposed data center in Rubbertown received approval to start construction under outdated regulations that never contemplated the hyperscale facilities needed for AI. And many don’t want data centers in Louisville at all.
As we head into 2026, the debate over data centers is likely to pit elected officials, who see them as economic opportunities, against the residents who are concerned about their impact on already-rising utility costs. The specter of new state regulations also hangs over these local discussions.
Louisville mayor reverses immigration policy after DOJ threat
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has brought an intractable political debate from the halls of Congress to city governments across the country.
Louisville is no exception.
In May, the Department of Homeland Security released a list of so-called “sanctuary cities” with Louisville among them. In response, Mayor Craig Greenberg agreed to change city policy to keep people in jail long enough to be picked up by immigration agents, a move some critics saw as the city kowtowing to the Trump administration.
Metro Council members waded into the immigration debate last month, voting down a proposed ordinance that would have banned federal agents from wearing face coverings when detaining people in Louisville.
A report from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting has also revealed that the Louisville Metro Police Department has allowed outside agencies to search its license plate reader data on local drivers for immigration enforcement. And LMPD is now investigating whether one of its officers used the license plate reader network to aid federal immigration agents.
Federal efforts to suppress immigration and speed up deportations show no signs of slowing in 2026.
