Things you need to know
On Wednesday May 21st, 2025 president Donald J. Trump announced that the Department of Justice was pulling out of what was to be the lawsuit United States of America(p) v. Louisville Metro/Jefferson County Government(d), also known as the Consent Decree. On the exact same day, Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg and police chief Paul Humphrey announced the Louisville Community Commitment. Many events took place from that moment but not the least of which would lead to Elefa, which stands for Effective Law Enforcement for All and they are your independent monitor. What that means is that they are going to assess and report on Louisville Metro’s and LMPD’s progress toward implementing the requirements of this Agreement. All of this and more can be found at paragraph 19 of the Community Commitment.
The city of Louisville hosted two listening sessions in an attempt to find out from however many in community they were able to reach what you looked for in an Independent Monitor. Here is the timeline: The first listening session: June 17th, 2025 at the Goodwill Opportunity Center.
The second listening session was on June 28th, 2025 at the Newburg Community Center with the meet the finalists event having taken September 16th, 2025 at the Republic Bank Foundation YMCA. Elefa was chosen over 21CP Solutions and announced on September 26th, 2025. The process in selecting the Independent Monitor was up to a privately selected team called the scoring committee which consisted of then deputy Mayor David James, David Kaplan, Chief of Staff and General Counsel, Office of Mayor Craig Greenberg, Megan Metcalf, former Deputy General Counsel, Office of Mayor Craig Greenberg, Senator Keturah Herron, District 35 and councilman Ken Herndon, Metro Council District 4. Elefa then held their first unofficial meeting with community on December 10th 6pm at 2028 W Broadway, Molina Passport.
Independent monitoring serves as a crucial mechanism for accountability, transparency, and building trust in systems.
There are a series of documents that you should know about as well. The first is the Community Commitment itself which is the localized agreement that is said to be between Louisville Metro Government, LMPD and Community.
The next document is the Elefa's first budget proposal. As it states in the Community Commitment on paragraph 24, "Louisville Metro will pay the Monitor a maximum of $750,000 per year" and this first budget proposal talks about how they first proposed that was going to work.
Read the Monitoring Protocols, this document goes into the Elefa team with greater detail, their collaborative effort of oversight, their reporting process and helpful dates. This document, invoices and more can be found on their website as well. The Safe Louisville Plan and the Crime Plan are two other documents to keep a close eye on through this process.
Although not a document, the Community Safety Commission is another helpful resource to pay attention to which is a vital part of the Community Commitment process and is said to support the implementation of the Community Commitment. It is comprised of 8 individuals representing community organizations, 9 community representatives and 7 insitution representatives.The Implementation Plan is another crucial part of this process which is to provide an overview for how Louisville Metro and LMPD intend to reach substantial compliance with the Agreement, set forth a process for Louisville Metro and LMPD to obtain review from the Monitor, Identify any Performance Audits related to the requirements of this Agreement, Identify any Review to be performed by the Monitor during the year and specify any documents that must be preserved pursuant to the agreement beyond the requirements of applicable retention policies. If you're noticing a trend here, this information and more can also be found on paragraph 14 of the Community Commitment.
Elefa has held two official meetings and 1 unofficial meeting since the time of this article. The next meeting is to be held in September where they are to present their semi-annual report to the public and also with a specific date to be announced as time gets closer. Thus far, community members that have attended these meetings have met or heard from lead monitor Sheree Briscoe Stewart, deputy monitor Brian Corr, deputy monitor Eric Melancon, associate monitor, Lisa Fink, subject matter expert, Jason Armstrong and associate monitor, Julie Solomon. We continue to encourage you to read the community commitment, monitoring protocols and the The Implementation Plan.
