A recent policy change regarding how the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) handles high speed chases is leading to safer streets around the city. According to a special report from WDRB’s Jason Riley, the LMPD now has one of the strictest pursuit policies in the country. And data suggest it’s working so make Louisville’s streets safer.
In 2012, a police pursuit of a drug suspect ended up killing Stephanie Melson, a mother of three, after the suspect ran a stop sign. “Melson’s death was the catalyst for newly arrived Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad to overhaul the department’s pursuit policy,” Riley wrote, “to try and reduce the risk of collisions and fatalities from police chases.”
The policy, instituted in December 2012 and updated several times since then, states that LMPD officers can only pursue suspects involved with a violent felony, according to Riley. Otherwise, the chase must be called off. “As of last year, they have to stop, turn around and drive the opposite direction to show the suspect they are not being followed,” Riley reported.
According to WDRB’s numbers, provided by LMPD, seven people were killed as a result of pursuits in the five years before the policy. Since 2013, there have been no deaths related to police chases. Total police chases have dropped by by over half since the change.
That’s a serious increase in street safety.
“The whole idea behind the change was to reduce the opportunity for citizens and officers and people we are pursuing to get hurt,” Police Chief Conrad told Riley. Conrad added that about 50 percent of police chases result in collisions or injuries of some kind.
Nationwide since 1979, more than 5,000 people have been died as a result of police chases, according to a 2015 USA Today analysis cited in Riley’s report. Over that same time, 171 Kentuckians have been killed by such high-speed pursuits. Tens of thousands more have been injured.
Riley reported that some police officers have dissented against the policy, and that the number of chases has been increasing again with the number of disciplinary actions against officers in those chases increasing as well. But the data still show that the policy has made streets safer, with no deaths, a 17 percent reduction in collisions, and a 57 percent reduction in injuries.
“We’re hired to catch the bad guys and letting someone go, even if they have committed a non-violent felony, rubs all of us the wrong way,” Conrad told Riley. “But that doesn’t justify taking unnecessary risks.”
Smoketown’s efforts to advocate for a change in the basin design of the Logan CSO Interceptor Project took major steps forward last week. For the Smoketown community, this is a crucial issue of environmental, racial, and economic justice. At stake is whether the community will be blighted by a structure covering a city block built by the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) or whether MSD will bury its facility and provide much-needed green space to the Smoketown community above its facility.
To recap
The site of the Logan Street CSO Basin. (Courtesy MSD)
The Logan CSO Interceptor is one of a dozen basins MSD is constructing around Louisville to capture Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) during heavy rain events. These basins are part of MSD’s effort to comply with a consent decree it entered into with the EPA to reduce pollution of the Ohio River.
Rendering of the south end of the CSO Basin. (Courtesy MSD)
At every other site where it is environmentally feasible to bury the basin below ground, MSD is doing just that.
However, MSD designed the Smoketown basin first, and—by its own admission—failed to do the outreach necessary to get community input and engagement in Smoketown. It designed the Smoketown facility as a block-long, windowless brick structure. This, instead of the green space being provided to other neighborhoods above the CSO facilities.
For more information on the history of the project and the design, you can read the Smoketown community’s letter to MSD it delivered last week, copied in full below.
Now to recent events
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Renderings of a redesigned basin wall from last week's meeting. (Courtesy De Leon & Primmer)
Renderings of a redesigned basin wall from last week's meeting. (Courtesy De Leon & Primmer)
Renderings of a redesigned basin wall from last week's meeting. (Courtesy De Leon & Primmer)
Renderings of a redesigned basin wall from last week's meeting. (Courtesy De Leon & Primmer)
MSD scheduled a meeting last Wednesday to design the facade of the block-long building. At that meeting, Rev. Bruce Williams of Bates Memorial Baptist Church spoke for ten minutes about the history of the project and why he would refuse to participate in the design of the facade.
It was a remarkable statement on behalf of the neighborhood and, following his remarks, over a hundred people walked out of the meeting. As Rev. Williams’s said, this building is an insult to Smoketown and “you cannot decorate an insult.”
Here is the video of Rev. Williams’s speech:
Led by Rev. Williams, residents, business owners, advocates, and allies met the following day. From that meeting, we have written a letter to MSD inviting its Executive Director and Board to another community meeting to “outline a process going forward in which MSD and the Smoketown neighborhood can work together to ensure that the Logan CSO Interceptor Project is a) completed in a timely manner and b) constructed in a way that treats the Smoketown neighborhood with the same respect and dignity provided to the other neighborhoods in which you are constructing CSO projects”.
It is our hope that from Wednesday’s meeting, MSD leadership will commit to redesign the Logan CSO Interceptor Project now, before it is too late.
Above: Broken Sidewalk spoke with residents about the CSO Basin and blasting that is causing problems in the neighborhood. Read the full story here.
What can you do to help?
So, what can you do to help Smoketown get the same treatment as other communities?
Come to the community meeting on Wednesday, March 23 at 6:00p.m. at Bates Memorial Baptist Church, 620 East Lampton Street.
Sign the petition at smoketownvoice.com This is a website we have set up to advocate for equal treatment of Smoketown by MSD.
Help share the petition and the Facebook page on your social media networks!
Here is the full letter to MSD
Bates Memorial Baptist Church
620 E. Lampton St.
Louisville, KY 40203
Tony Parrott, Executive Director MSD Building
700 W. Liberty St.
Louisville, KY 40203
March 18, 2016
Re: Upcoming community meeting for Logan CSO Interceptor Project; March 23 at 6 p.m.
Dear Executive Director Parrott and the MSD Board,
We are writing today on behalf of ourselves, our congregations, our members, our businesses, and our neighbors in the Smoketown neighborhood. We would like to invite you to a community meeting at Bates Memorial Baptist Church on March 23 at 6 p.m. At this meeting we hope to discuss with you our vision for the Logan CSO Interceptor Project and outline a process going forward in which MSD and the Smoketown neighborhood can work together to ensure that the Logan CSO Interceptor Project is a) completed in a timely manner and b) constructed in a way that treats the Smoketown neighborhood with the same respect and dignity provided to the other neighborhoods in which you are constructing CSO projects.
It is our hope that after this meeting you will commit to:
seek approval of a resolution at your March 28th Board Meeting to amend
the design of the Logan CSO Project to construct an at‐grade facility, and
meet with our community again on March 31 to create a process with
timelines to provide the community an opportunity to comment on and participate in the approval of preliminary designs of an at-grade basin and engage in the design of the land above the facility for the mutual benefit of MSD and the Smoketown neighborhood
While for MSD the Logan CSO Interceptor Project may only be one step in complying with the Consent Decree it entered into with the Environmental Protection Agency, for us, this is an issue of environmental justice, of racial justice, and economic justice. You plan to build a windowless, block-long building in our community while planning to build underground structures in other communities around Louisville in which it is environmentally feasible and to provide those communities with much-needed green space above the structure.
The disparity in your plans for Smoketown and other Louisville neighborhoods is unjust and unacceptable. It is not too late to make it right and we want to work with you in that effort.
How we got here
At a community meeting on November 16 at Coke Memorial Baptist Church, Smoketown residents, businesspeople, and allies gathered to hear from MSD’s Executive Director Tony Parrott. Mr. Parrott, responding to the dissatisfaction from Smoketown residents, admitted that the Logan project “did not have a good rollout” and lacked “community engagement”. The Logan CSO Interceptor was the the first of the twelve CSO structures to be designed and built, Mr. Parrott explained, and he apologized for not developing good partnerships with Louisville Metro and for failing to get community input at the outset on the design of the building.
During the course of the meeting, we learned that after receiving input from other neighborhoods on their CSO Interceptor projects, MSD decided to bury each of the other 11 structures at grade1. It was clear from the comments made by neighbors at the Smoketown meeting that an at-grade structure was their preferred design, as well. MSD had studied the possibility of doing this for the Logan CSO Interceptor project and determined that burying the facility at grade would have cost an additional $4,000,000.
As a concession to the neighborhood, MSD offered the Smoketown community the opportunity to weigh in on the design of the facade of the building. MSD explained that it would agree to allow the community to spend $700,000 that was previously budgeted for bricks on some alternative facade of which the community approves.
On January 28, 2016, community members met with De Leon & Primmer, the architects hired by MSD to revise MSD’s plans for the Logan CSO Project. The overwhelming consensus at that meeting (like at the November 2015 meeting) was that the community was not interested in having an above-grade building on the site. Instead, we submitted to MSD several visions for the green space above an at- grade facility.
The community members hoped that MSD would review the plans generated at the January 28th meeting, recognize the injustice it was perpetrating in the Smoketown community, and amend its plans accordingly.
That is not what happened.
Instead, the next meeting MSD scheduled was the “Logan Street CSO Basin Facade Design Meeting” for this past Wednesday, March 16. At the meeting, the proposed agenda was to hear from Executive Director Parrott, review the design proposals for the facade as conceived by DeLeon and Primmer, and then break up into small groups to further discuss the architect’s proposals for the facade. In other words, the entire meeting was structured to preemptively reject this communities’ repeated demand for an at-grade facility, circumscribe the discussion to preclude the expression of any preference for an at-grade facility, and treat the construction of an above-grade facade as an inexorable truth.
We rejected those terms.
As Pastor Williams said, “It’s your mistake, but we have to live with it, and I can’t accept that.” Despite hearing clearly from this community that your plans are unacceptable, you are continuing to construct an unfair building that will blight our neighborhood and stand as an insult to the Smoketown people. The neighborhood of Smoketown agreed with Pastor Williams who said, “You cannot decorate an insult” and hundreds of neighbors, businesspeople, and allies walked out of that “facade design” meeting. A link to Pastor Williams’s full comments are available at http://smoketownvoice.com This is a website we have created specifically to advocate for an at-grade basin at the Logan CSO Interceptor site.
Wednesday’s meeting was not productive. We will not participate in decorating an insult. We hope you will meet with us this Wednesday to discuss how we can go forward together in a way that simultaneously honors both MSD’s commitments under the Consent Decree and the dignity and integrity of the Smoketown neighborhood.
It’s not too late
During his comments at the March 16th meeting, Executive Director Parrott explained that the project was 35% complete and that “all of the blasting will be completed by the end of the month.”
It is not too late to alter the design of the Logan CSO Interceptor Project to bring it in line with the other CSO basins you are building in other communities around Louisville. However, we understand that time is of the essence. That’s why we hope to meet with you on Wednesday.
Will changing the design of the Logan CSO cost more money? Yes it will. From our perspective, this is a problem for MSD to solve, not the Smoketown community. Will changing the design require more workers and potentially increase the duration of the project? Almost certainly. This, again, is on MSD. MSD has already admitted that it did not do the proper community outreach and engagement in the Smoketown neighborhood when it designed this basin. MSD has admitted its process was flawed. That flawed process led to MSD to decide— without community input—to save $4,000,000 on the Logan CSO Interceptor. After it got input from other communities, it learned that its decision at the Logan site was wrong and invested in more expensive projects in the 11 other neighborhoods. Yet, MSD has not returned to Smoketown to fix its $4,000,000 mistake.
Please join us
We want to work with MSD to make the Logan CSO Interceptor Project work for both MSD and the Smoketown neighborhood. Please join us at on March 23 at 6 p.m. at Bates Memorial Baptist Church. From there, we hope you will commit to seek board approval on a resolution to build an at-grade basin in Smoketown on March 28th. Then, on March 31st, we can meet again to chart our way forward so that the community can quickly approve preliminary and final plans for the revised project. We know you have work to do under the Consent Decree. We are committed to working with you to fix this project quickly.
I hope it is clear from the community’s actions on Wednesday that we will not accept an above‐grade facility in Smoketown. Not when an at-grade facility is possible and while MSD is constructing at-grade facilities in other neighborhoods across Louisville. Because time is of the essence, we will need to see positive steps from MSD in the coming weeks that communicate clearly to this community that it has heard our voices and is going to change the design of the Logan CSO Interceptor Project. These positive steps include, at minimum,
attending our community meeting on March 23, 2016 at 6 p.m. at Bates Memorial Baptist Church (620 E. Lampton St.)
ratifying a resolution at your MSD board meeting on March 28th, 2016 to build an at-grade basin at the Logan CSO Interceptor site
attending our community meeting on March 31, 2016 at 6 p.m. at Bates Memorial Baptist Church (620 E. Lampton St.) to put a plan into place for ratification of design changes by the Smoketown community
If we do not see these positive steps from MSD, we are preparing to insist on the design changes through direct action, political engagement, litigation, community education, protest, and activism.
This is not our preferred path. We would prefer to work in concert with MSD and create a win‐win outcome for our neighborhood and MSD. Please call Bates Memorial Baptist Church (502-636-0523) and let us know if we can expect you at our community meeting next Wednesday. We look forward to welcoming you then and working with you during this redesign process.
Sincerely,
The Smoketown Neighborhood Association
Dr. F. Bruce Williams, Bates Memorial Baptist Church
Ben Carter, Ben Carter Law, PLLC
Stephen Kertis, Kertis Creative
1 The only other CSO being built above-grade is the Butchertown CSO. It is our understanding that because of the Butchertown site, it is not environmentally feasible to bury the facility below grade. We know that these environmental limitations do not exist at the Smoketown site because MSD has admitted to reviewing and rejecting proposals for an at-grade facility at Smoketown based on the additional $4,000,000 cost projections.
The Phoenix Hill Apartments have taken another step forward. The Planning Commission last Thursday unanimously gave its permission to rezone the property to accommodate the $52 million, mixed-use development on the corner of East Broadway and Baxter Avenue. Waivers and variances were also approved.
The Baxter Avenue side of the building. (Courtesy Edwards Companies)
Slated to bring 281 apartments, 30,000 square feet of retail along Baxter, and 550 parking spaces in a garage, the yet-unnamed project’s rezoning case must now be approved by Metro Council, where it is unlikely to hit any snags.
The East Broadway side of the building. (Courtesy Edwards Companies)
To be developed by Columbus, Ohio–based Edwards Companies, the complex would bring a needed urban boost to an area plagued by surface level parking lots. Several older houses and two historic commercial buildings will be demolished to make way for the building, but one Italianate house facade and another commercial building facade will be rebuilt into the project. Six other houses were excluded from the project site and will remain standing.
The Rogers Street side of the building. (Courtesy Edwards Companies)
A block west along East Broadway, Edwards Companies is planning to begin construction on the 200-unit Mercy Apartments on the site of the former girls high school. There, a century old convent will be demolished. After clearing its final regulatory hurdle last year, developers hope to get started with construction this spring.
Two Louisville sites are among 11 in Kentucky that have been newly listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. Both of Lousiville’s listings will help development projects in Schnitzelburg and Paristown Pointe move forward.
Among the benefits of listing a property on the Register is being able to apply for state and federal historic tax credits to develop a project, making the rehab of old buildings more affordable. Both Louisville structures will likely benefit from such incentives.
The two structures listed were the Klotz Confectionery Co., 731 Brent Street, and the Louisville Cotton Mills Administration Building, 1318 McHenry Street.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council, the Commonwealth has the fourth highest number of National Register listings in the country, with more than 3,300 sites on “the nation’s official list of historic and archaeological resources deemed worthy of preservation.”
Klotz Confectionery Company
Candy making at the old Klotz plant. (Courtesy NPS)
Klotz Confectionery Co. was built in 1937 in Louisville as a candy manufacturing plant, according to National Register documents authored by Joanne Weeter, a historic preservation consultant. Klotz’s opened in 1905 under Fred Klotz, and specialised in chocolate turtles, ice cream, and other candies. The company employed 92 people.
The original Klotz building at 519 East Market Street. (Courtesy NPS)The original Klotz building at 519 East Market Street. (Courtesy NPS)
Charles F. Klotz, who had previously worked at Cuscaden’s Ice Cream, set out on his own under the banner of Klotz Ice Cream Works, originally locating at 519 East Market Street. “It was important for the Klotz company to illustrate to customers how up-to-date and sanitary their establishment was,” Weeter wrote, “as many producers and manufacturers of consumable goods at this time were under fire for unsanitary conditions.” Weeter’s research found that Klotz’s early operation could churn out 1,000 gallons of ice cream every day.
The Klotz building today. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
The company changed its name to the Klotz Confectionery Company in the summer of 1937 and moved its operation to Brent Street. Klotz purchased a two-story Brent Street property for $25,000 from leather processing company R. Mansfield and Sons Inc., but in August of that year, the structure was engulfed by a massive fire. By the end of the year, Klotz had rebuilt his facility and was again up and running making candy and ice cream.
(Courtesy NPS)
In 1960, the company was purchased by Jeff H. Jaffe, “ending over 50 years of candy and confection production in Louisville, Kentucky,” Weeter wrote. Jaffe went on to be a successful businessman, buying companies in Brooklyn and distributing KitKat and Oh Henry candy bars, among other achievements. Charles Frederick Klotz, III, the last family descendent involved in the original Klotz operation, is retired and lives in Fisherville.
The structure today. (Courtesy Google)
The two-story brick Klotz building is divided into six bays on its Brent Street facade with original metal-frame windows still intact. Inside, the structure features wooden columns, and Weeter speculates that, based on their age, they may have been salvaged from a neighboring Wirth, Lang & Company/The Louisville Leather Company Tannery Building.
Brent Street in Paristown Pointe is set for a major overhaul. (Courtesy Google)
The company closed in 1967 and Caron’s City Directory indicated it was then used by the Reynolds Aluminum Company. The structure was eventually folded into the Louisville Stoneware campus and is now part of a collaborative effort to rejuvenate the Brent Street corridor.
Once renovation is complete on the Klotz structure, it will become the showroom and factory for Louisville Stoneware. All work is expected to comply with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.
Louisville Cotton Mills Administration Building
The front facade of the Administration Building. (Courtesy NPS)
Around the corner in Schnitzelburg, the Louisville Cotton Mills Administration Building was also listed on the National Register. Its listing is expected to help renovate the small outbuilding into a restaurant adjacent to the Germantown Mill Lofts. The larger mill property was listed on the National Register in 1982 (the Administration Building was not old enough at that time to qualify under the listing).
Looking north on McHenry toward Goss Avenue with the larger mill building behind the Administration Building. (Courtesy Google)
The mills expanded multiple times since it opened in the 1880s. The third wave of additions between 1910 and 1928 included a small office building built in 1910 north of the site of the present Administration Building. That structure was demolished sometime after 1941 after the new building was built to the south in 1936 (although the National Register documents also say the structure was built in 1941).
The Administration Building on McHenry Street. (Courtesy Google)
The single-story structure facing McHenry Street, built of brick and limestone, features Art Deco–style ornamentation and a symmetrical layout. The building is square in plan with chamfered corners. Above the inset front door is a stone relief of a worker using a spinning wheel and loom and “a castle turret wrapped with a banner with ‘Fincastle Fabrics’ printed onto it,” according to Joseph C. Pierson, of Pinion Advisors, who authored the Register listing.
A curved glass window in the lobby of the Administration Building. (Courtesy NPS)
Exterior windows and doors have been largely altered later in the building’s life, with only a few original windows existing around back. Smaller windows and doors on the front facade take away from the building’s grandeur, and new windows that fit the structure should go a long way toward improving its aesthetics.
A historic view of the central office space and a modern view. (Courtesy NPS)Administration Building floor plan. (Courtesy NPS)
Inside, a lobby features a reception desk with curved glass edges appearing much like the ticket booth to an old theater. A central open-plan office space fills the center of the building. It is lined with conference rooms and offices for executives.
Louisville Cotton Mills was the first cotton mill in Louisville, hitting its peak in 1948 when it was Kentucky’s largest textile mill, producing some 8,000 yards of fabric each day. The mill closed in September 1967. Most recently, the Administration Building had been used as a daycare.
The logo for Finn’s Southern Kitchen, expected to open in May. (Courtesy Finn’s)
The larger mill property has been converted into the Germantown Mill Lofts, with residents moving in this spring and summer. The Administration Building is planned to become Finn’s Southern Kitchen. According to an Insider Louisville report from last October, the restaurant will be operated by Steve Clements, former owner of Avalon and Clements Catering. A building permit was issued last November for the project and the restaurant’s website says it is expected to open in May 2016, two months later than its original projection.
Remaining Kentucky Listings
National Park Service lists eleven Kentucky sites on the National Register of Historic Places. (Courtesy Kentucky Heritage Council)
Here’s information on the remaining nine Kentucky listings, according to a press release from the Kentucky Heritage Council.
Charles Young Park and Community Center
540 E. Third St.
Lexington
Authored by Randy Shipp, historic preservation specialist with Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
Acquired in 1930, Charles Young Park was the second parcel of land purchased by the city to serve the recreational needs of the African American community. Its namesake, Col. Charles Young, was born into slavery in Mays Lick in 1864 and went on to become the third African American graduate of West Point, the first African American U.S. national park superintendent and the first African American to achieve the rank of colonel. According to the author, “In Kentucky towns, African Americans erected a community that stood alongside the community of whites, in which most of the same activities occurred…” The area listed is 2.6 acres, with two contributing buildings erected in the mid-1930s and one contributing site. These include the community center, a one-story, brick veneer, side-gable building on a raised, cut-stone foundation with a rear addition featuring a gymnasium and stage; and a one-story brick restroom. The remaining site consists of open green space, a paved, multi-use ball court and playground area. It was nominated under Criterion A, property associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history, and Criterion C, embodying the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction. Its significance was evaluated within the historic context “African American Neighborhoods in Lexington, 1865-1965.”
Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association
343 South Broadway
Lexington
Authored by Sarah Tate, historic preservation consultant.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
Constructed in 1961-62, this iconic bank building was designed by Lexington architect Charles Bayless of the Firm Bayless Clotfelter & Associates. At the time of its construction, according to the author, the building “stood on the periphery of the historic downtown area of Lexington, a city which emerged in the early-19th century as a regional center of culture, agriculture, commerce and education.” The bank features a concrete foundation, concrete block walls with aqua-colored glazed brick veneer, and a precast “folded-plate” concrete roof. The building was nominated under Criterion C for its high artistic merit, and evaluated within the historic context “Mid-Century Modern Movement in Lexington, 1955-1965.” This building “provides a rare example… of a highly intact mid-century modern building with formal characteristics associated with several offshoots of the International Style,” the author writes. “In this nomination, the style is being defined as Neo Expressionism, and Streamline/Populuxe Modern.”
First Christian Church
201 North Washington Street
Clinton, Hickman County
Authored by Sarah Bowman, owner, and Marty Perry, KHC National Register Coordinator.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
The church was nominated under Criterion C, embodying the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction, in this case Romanesque Revival. The church is constructed of brick and dates to 1899. According to the authors, “This building is the only instance of Romanesque style recorded in the county… Its masonry material, chunky proportions, and heaviness of detail impart a solidity to the building… [that] offers the local population a design that seemed sophisticated relative to others on the local landscape. For a church group intent on announcing the solidity, wealth and social prestige of their congregation, the Romanesque Revival design provided those messages.” The building’s significance was evaluated within the historic context “Romanesque Revival Buildings of the Jackson Purchase Region, 1875-1925.”
California Apartments
2900 Clay Street
Paducah
Authored by Melinda Winchester with Winchester Preservation
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
California Apartments is a private neighborhood made up of Gunnison Home duplexes on 5.58 acres. Constructed in 1952, the complex comprises 36 one-story duplex buildings and two vacant lots. It was designed by developers Omar Goetz, Prewitt Lackey and Heath Wells, who created New Home Constructors Inc. as approved builders through the Atomic Energy Commission. The project was financed by the Federal Housing Authority specifically for the workers of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The complex was nominated under Criterion A, determined significant within the historic context “Residential Housing Related to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, 1950 to 1955.” According to the author, all of the buildings display a uniformity of basic form and materials consistent with Gunnison Home Design Models. “All the units retain their identifying Gunnison features of the sheet metal chimney, metal shutters and metal flower boxes. The site plan has not been altered from its original configuration, and the sidewalks, interior courtyards and mature trees remain intact.”
Clel Purdom House
Lebanon vicinity, Marion County
Authored by Suzanne Coyle, Ph.D., owner.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
Constructed in the Italianate style in approximately 1884, this two-story, frame house includes Italianate features such as overhanging eaves with decorative brackets and tall, narrow windows. The house is clad with weatherboards and sits on a stone foundation. The house was nominated under Criterion C and evaluated as significant within the historic context “Italianate Style in Marion County.” According to the author, “The development of Italianate architecture in the early 19th century flourished in urban areas where economic growth… was often reflected in the architectural design of the city. Small towns such as Lebanon, and rural areas of Marion County, might imitate those urban signs of economic prosperity, though at a later time than they first appeared in those cities. Use of the Italianate architecture then became a sign of economic status and cultural savvy in Marion County.”
Sroufe House
2471 Mary Ingles Highway
Dover, Mason County
Authored by Catherine Bache of Louisville
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
This listing includes a secondary brick building as well as the painted brick house, constructed in 1800, expanded during the antebellum period and again in 1975. According to the author, “The resource is being interpreted as a well-documented instance of a planned escape of three of the farm’s enslaved workers.” The property was listed under Criterion A, and the period of significance is a single year, 1864, during which a neighbor across the Ohio River, John P. Parker, assisted Celia Brooks, her husband and baby to escape from bondage under the owners of the house, Sebastian and Mary Ann Sroufe. The author cites a story from Parker’s autobiography that has also been well documented by others as verifying her argument for listing the site as significant within the historic context “Underground Railroad in the Borderlands of Kentucky and Ohio.” While Camp Nelson in Jessamine County is considered by NPS to be the first National Register listing in Kentucky associated with historic events related to the Underground Railroad, the Sroufe House is the first Kentucky residence to be listed for this association. According to the author, “Unlike the typical narrative of an Underground Railroad claim, part of the significance of the Sroufe House episode is that the story does not depict the Sroufe family as abolitionists or as sympathetic to the cause of liberating enslaved people. In this instance, the Sroufe House gained its association with the Underground Railroad in opposition to the owners’ interests.”
Bell House
7310 Columbia Road
Edmonton vicinity, Metcalfe County
Authored by Janie-Rice Brother, senior architectural historian with the Kentucky Archaeological Survey.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
The Bell House was constructed between 1907 and 1909 for Curtis A. Bell and his wife, Cora, and designed by Albert Killian of Owensboro. A native of Adair County, Bell was a merchant and farmer and his wife was the daughter of a locally prominent merchant, farmer and lumber dealer, J.H. Kinnaird. According to the author, Kinnaird financed the building of the structure, a 2½-story frame house clad in clapboards with vertical wood siding and a distinctive two-story tower – a merging of Queen Anne and classical styles. The house was listed under Criterion C, evaluated within the historic context “Architecture in Metcalfe County, 1880-1910.” According to the author, “the house itself embodies the vernacular traditions persistent in Kentucky, where popular national styles remained relevant for years after they passed out of favor in more urban areas. But at the same time, the attention to detail, and the high style of finishes in the house set it apart from all other houses built in the same time period in the local architectural arena. The Bell House is significant locally as a rural architect-designed dwelling in the Free Classic style.”
Morehead C & O Railway Freight Depot
130 East First Street
Morehead, Rowan County
Authored by Gary D. Lewis, president of the Rowan County Historical Society.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
Constructed in 1881 by the Elizabethtown, Lexington and Big Sandy Railway in Morehead, this depot was later acquired by the Chesapeake & Ohio (C & O) Railroad. According to the author, this stick, or Prairie-style frame building served as a passenger depot as well as a freight depot until about 1910 when a brick passenger depot was built nearby. Today the depot’s original wooden structure is intact and the building remains in its original location. According to the author, the depot “played an extremely significant role in local transportation, commerce, communications and social affairs of Morehead and Rowan County. This nomination acknowledges and relies on the tremendous transportation, economic and social changes brought about by the C & O Railroad in our area.” It was nominated under Criterion C as a type of construction and for a design that influenced future C & O Railroad depots, and evaluated within the historic context “Development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in East Kentucky, 1870-1940.”
Felix Grundy Stidger House
102 Garrard Street
Taylorsville
Authored by Arnie Mueller, vice president of the Felix Grundy Stidger Historic Preservation Foundation.
According to the Kentucky Heritage Council:
The listing of this home in the National Register stands out in that the nomination was submitted under Criterion B, property associated with the lives of persons significant in our country’s past, a rarely used designation. Felix Grundy Stidger (1836-1908) was a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War, and the defined period of significance for the home’s listing, 1864-65, spans the two years he was actively engaged as a spy. Stidger traveled extensively during this time, and the covert nature of his work makes it hard to associate any other particular places with this role. The saddlebag-plan log house features a stone foundation, gable roof and central chimney. Today the building is in poor condition, yet because of its association with an important person, this did not preclude listing. The house was evaluated within the larger historic context “Spying in the U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865.” According to the author, approximately 390 known spies worked for both the North and the South throughout the war, including 43 women. Approximately 50 men and women on both sides were eventually executed, and some spies went on to successful careers, such as James A. Garfield, the 20th U.S. President. Following the war, Stidger relocated to Chicago, where he lived until his death.
Now, de Leon will be delivering the 2016 Frederic Lindley Morgan Lecture in Architecture at the University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute. He will discuss his current work.
The lecture takes place Tuesday, March 22 at 6:00p.m. at UL’s Humanities Building, Room 100. The event is free and open to the public.
De Leon founded DPAW with Ross Primmer. The collaborative studio, now based on Shelby Street in Nulu, focuses on public, cultural, civic, and nonprofit projects around the Commonwealth and the country. De Leon and Primmer met while attending architecture school in Harvard and later teamed up to start their firm in an up-and-coming city, eschewing the world capitals where many top architects locate. They eventually chose Louisville.
Deanna Mitchell is a self-described nomad artist. “I don’t actually live anywhere,” Mitchell told Broken Sidewalk. “I live out of a backpack.” She took the big leap to tiny living last year and set out on a tour of Europe to study how cities there function—particularly after the sun goes down.
“I’ve been moving around a lot, and going to all these different cities around the world to see what they are doing to make people happy,” Mitchell said. “For me, it’s things that are happening at night. It’s the way that art is integrated into the nighttime. It’s inspiring for me to walk around these cities at night and see what they’re doing in terms of light design.”
Following her trip, Mitchell brought some of those ideas back to Louisville. And this weekend, her group, Oh Wow Creative Collective, is launching an installation called The Forest Rises on the lawn beneath the spiral ramp to the Big Four Bridge, itself an over-scaled piece of light art.
(Deanna Mitchell)
Mitchell’s installation uses fiber optics to illuminate 192 hand-made mushrooms that appear to grow along the banks of the Ohio River.
To create the installation, Mitchell hand molded each mushroom using ten different forms. For the illuminated effect, Mitchell joined with electrical engineer Tyler Martin and process engineer Jason Latta to create three custom-made LED light boards powered by Arduino and a custom-built acrylic piece that holds the fiber optic cable in place. Each box holds 64 bundles of fiber that lead sinuously to 64 mushrooms with soft trails of light. Lvl1 provided Mitchell with a makership that allowed her to build the self-funded project in its hackerspace.
Mitchell hand bundled nearly 20 kilometers of fiber in her apartment. “That was a major thing, getting all that fiber spun,” she said. “I had five giant spools of this fiber optic material, and I would walk it across the room five strands at a time, and just walk back and forth and bundle them into 30 strand bundles.” She did repeated that process for each of the 192 mushrooms.
“It’s like putting this layer of magic on top of your normal,” Mitchell said. “It makes you pause and feel something. The whole idea is to get people out and inspire community.”
(Brian Martin)
The Forest Rises officially kicks off Sunday, March 20 and runs every night through Sunday, March 27. A special sneak peek takes place Saturday, March 19 between 9:00 and 10:00p.m. where the team will show off their display and Mitchell will discuss her inspiration and the details behind the project.
“It’s out there now on the Big Four Bridge lawn,” Mitchell said of the light display. “You can see it all the way up the ramp—you can’t miss it.”
After the show concludes, Mitchell hopes to take the light show to other locations around Louisville. “My hope is that they can move to a new spot and activate a new spot,” she said. “I’ve got my eye one a new location. I would like to tactically move them around to different spots.”
Mitchell hopes to bring more of her experiences traveling abroad back to Louisville—and to find new ways of activating space at night locally. “I don’t see a lot of this stuff in Louisville,” Mitchell said. “But people are hungry for it—everyone was going nuts over the Speed opening. I want to be a part of that.”
While her current plans are to focus on this installation, Mitchell hopes Louisville could one day host a full-fledged light festival, similar to one called Signal in Prague. “That is my dream,” she said. “It’s just incredibly beautiful.”
“A lot of cities think if you light up an area, then you’re going to get trouble in that area,” Mitchell added. “I don’t think that’s true. If you properly light up an area—artistically light up an area—then you get community building. Even in the winter, people still come out.”
Louisville’s bid for $50 million in funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Smart City Challenge was cut short with the announcement of seven finalists in the competitive program seeking to assist “the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies—self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors—into their transportation network.” That’s two more finalists than was originally planned.
The seven finalist cities include Austin, TX; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Kansas City, MO; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; and San Francisco, CA. Each city will receive $100,000 to further develop its proposal.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx made the announcement at the South by Southwest conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, on March 12. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer was also at SXSW, and spoke with WFPL’s Jacob Ryan about some of his experiences there.
(Courtesy U.S. DOT)
Louisville’s bid was among 78 applications submitted to the DOT. “The level of excitement and energy the Smart City Challenge has created around the country far exceeded our expectations,” Secretary Foxx said in a statement. The challenge specifically sought mid-size cities with populations between 200,000 and 850,000, according to Next City.
The Smart City Challenge was developed in response to the department’s Beyond Traffic draft report, issues in 2015, that showed a need for increased mobility options in mid-sized cities. The report also revealed current infrastructure is not equipped to handle population growth in these cities.
“Nearly all of the finalist cities are looking to network existing infrastructure using sensors and to improve electric vehicle infrastructure; many are exploring the potential of self-driving cars,” Jen Kinney wrote for Next City. “Austin would add more sensors to roadways and better integrate regional and citywide traffic data to more quickly reroute cars in the event of a crash.” Read more about the finalist proposals at Next City.
“The winning city will be selected based on their ability to think big, and provide a detailed roadmap on how they will integrate innovative technologies to prototype the future of transportation in their city,” a press release stated. “The Department will work with each city to connect them with existing partnerships and support their final proposal with technical assistance.”
A winner is expected to be announced in June.
Louisville’s application to the challenge caused some controversy locally, which may have affected the city’s chances of being selected.
“The root of Louisville’s Smart City vision and application focuses on efforts already underway, specifically enhancing transit along the Dixie Highway corridor and expanding a pilot program to increase connectivity throughout the county,” a press release from the city read. “The vision also focuses on upgrading Louisville’s transportation network to include smart signals, additional sensors to improve traffic conditions and data collection to help people make real-time travel decisions.”
Louisville’s Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation (CART) took issue with Louisville’s effort in the challenge. “We think it’s tantamount to a kill light rail challenge,” said attorney Bud Hixson, a CART representative told the Courier-Journal‘s Phillip Bailey in January. “It’s hijacking transportation planning in favor of the automobile industry.” Hixson and other supporters had called for public hearings on the application.
The first day of Spring isn’t until Sunday, March 20, but Louisville is already beginning to see the first washes of color lining its streets.
Eric Stemen of Ocean Llama Timelapse & Video Production created the above film, titled Louisville in Bloom, showcasing the colorful beauty of flowering trees set against the architecture of some of Louisville’s most noted neighborhoods. And the entire film is set to a track by Kentucky’s own Ben Sollee.
“Photographing spring is a race against time,” Stemen wrote on his company’s blog. “For a fleeting moment each year trees become giant flowers, then transform into the way we see them the 11 months of the year, either with leaves or bare.”
Stemen’s timelapse video equipment in front of the Main Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library on York Street. (Courtesy Ocean Llama)
A normal timelapse video like this might take months to gather the footage, Stemen says, but he was able to shoot almost every day last April 2015 to gather the footage for this film. These colorful trees don’t stay colorful for long. After 30 days filming, Stemen whittled his 92 locations down to 66 that appear in the film.
Most of Stemen’s footage focused on Old Louisville and neighborhoods around Cherokee Park, where flowering trees are plentiful, but he also includes scenes from Downtown, SoBro, and other neighborhoods.
Stemen got the idea for the timelapse video after seeing a friend’s Facebook photo of a street in full bloom.
“Often when I think of a city known for flowering trees I think of Washington DC with their cherry blossoms,” Stemen wrote. “But if you want something a little closer to home with less tourists just take a walk through Old Louisville or around the Cherokee park neighborhoods, they are in incredible site to see.”
[Correction: An earlier version of this article neglected to note that the soundtrack to the film is by Ben Sollee. The article has been updated.]
Sellus Wilder believes in the power of a grassroots movement—that a group of dedicated citizens can fight the seemingly unwinnable battle against corporate interests—and he has the film to prove it.
In his new documentary, The End of the Line, Wilder recounts the story of how citizens across the Commonwealth banded together in opposition of the Bluegrass Pipeline in 2013 that would have carried fracking waste material through Kentucky.
At 90 minutes long, the film breaks down the economics of the fracking industry and how natural gas liquids (NGLs)—a slurry byproduct of hydraulic fracturing—can be made into cheap plastics. The catch is that NGLs need to be shipped from the fracking mines in the Northeast down to the oil refineries in Louisiana in order to be made profitable.
The film goes on to explain how representatives from Williams Company and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners—the parent company of Bluegrass Pipeline, LLC—tried to work with Kentucky residents and obtain permission to lay a pipeline through 13 counties across the Commonwealth.
Sellus Wilder. (Courtesy Sellus Wilder)
At the heart of the film are the people who took it upon themselves to defend what they believed were at stake: land, liberty, and the right to a healthy life. Footage from public hearings are perhaps some of the best segments of the film, as it shows residents clashing with representatives from Bluegrass Pipeline—moments that crackle with tension and demonstrate the David vs. Goliath nature of the conflict.
In addition to filmmaking, Wilder served four years as city commissioner and Mayor pro tem in Frankfort. During his tenure, Wilder required that all public meetings in the city be recorded and posted online in order to increase government transparency. He also made Frankfort the first city in Kentucky to incentivize recycling.
“There used to be a flat fee for garbage collection, but instead we adjusted it so folks could save money on their garbage bill by wasting less and recycling more,” Wilder explained. “The recycling rate went up 40 percent in the first month of its implementation.”
He’s also running for U.S. Senate against six other candidates in the Democratic primary in May, and hopes to face off against Rand Paul in November.
Broken Sidewalk reporter Elijah McKenzie met with Wilder to explore some of the issues raised in The End of the Line, and to find out how the filmmaker hopes to spread his message of a new economic transition in Kentucky.
Proposed route of the Bluegrass Pipeline (Still from The End of the Line)
Elijah McKenzie: Why did you choose the Bluegrass Pipeline as the subject of your first documentary? Did you have a personal connection to the issue?
Sellus Wilder: Initially when I came on to the project, I had a lot of friends who were engaged in the pipeline fight. They asked me to come on board to produce a couple of short videos and interviews with landowners to get a different perspective on the table. At the time, the pipeline company was spending millions of dollars to promote their own point of view and there was no counter-narrative. So the idea was, at the very least, we could present a different side to the story.
After doing just a couple of interviews, it became very clear that there was a deeper story at play. You know, I always thought it was possible that the pipeline could be defeated, so that was one impetus. So it seemed like this was an engaging and exciting fight that was bringing together a diverse coalition, ranging from Tea Partiers and constitutional conservatives, to nuns and farmers, ranchers and environmental groups—all these different people working together to face off against these multi-billion-dollar companies.
What did you discover during the interview process? Did you find that there were more supporters than opponents, or vice versa?
The supporters of the pipeline were actually few and far between. Most of the folks on the ground were opposed to it. Folks from out of state, who were spending lots of money, were supportive of the pipeline.
A lot of those who did support it, at least the folks from Kentucky, were the ones who sold easements to the pipeline company. That was often an unpopular decision for them. Their neighbors were often unhappy with them for taking the money and risking everybody’s health and safety in those areas. So, a lot of the folks who took that money weren’t particularly vocal about it.
I do have a lot of sympathy for those who sold easements. The money they were being offered was hard to turn down. I know it wasn’t an easy decision to make, for both the folks who said yes and the folks who said no. It caused a lot of tension among communities—neighbors were, in some ways, pitted against each other by the pipeline company.
How did that tension play out? In the film, we saw the debates between citizens and representatives from Williams and Boardwalk, but did any of that cause animosity between neighbors?
No, at least not publicly. The closest it ever came to was when some organized labor folks were bused in to Frankfort to oppose an anti-eminent domain bill. A lot of those guys weren’t really told what the bill was about, so I had a lot of sympathy for them because they were just looking for jobs, you know, and I can respect that. I think a lot of them didn’t realize that the bill they were opposing—all it would have done was give landowners the right to say no to a hazardous liquids pipeline on their property. So I think even a lot of those labor guys, once they sat through the hearing and understood the issue that was actually on the table, I think a lot of them actually came around.
Residents meet with representatives from Bluegrass Pipeline, LLC.
Yeah, that was an interesting part of the film. It was a bit perplexing because unions are generally considered allies in the struggle against corporate corruption and that sort of thing. Were you able to talk to any of those guys when you were filming that scene?
No, I wanted to that day but nobody would talk with me. But I will say, my favorite shot in the movie—it’s one of the testimonials that’s given before the judiciary committee—a woman who said, “As a veteran, I fought for these freedoms and these rights. Please don’t take that right away from me.” And she gets up and leaves her seat, and you can see it on the face of one of the labor guys sitting behind her—and you can see it sinking in.
That was a powerful scene. The expression on his face that was sort of this thousand-mile stare that said, “What am I here for?”
Yeah. I regret not being able to talk with them. The pipeline folks wouldn’t talk with me.
None of them?
No. I asked, and they said they would as long as they could have editorial control. If they could get final approval on whether or not any footage I cut was included in the film, they would do it, but that would have been unethical on my part and I just wasn’t willing to go there.
I was still able to incorporate their perspective and comments into the film just by recording them in open meetings. Those comments are a matter of public record and I could film them and include them without their permission, you know, as long as they were speaking at county meetings, state hearings, and that kind of thing. It was important to me that this story not be one-sided. I wanted to present the arguments that were being made on the other side as faithfully and fairly as I could.
A farm in rural Kentucky was part of the pipeline route.
Was there ever a moment where you felt like, “Well maybe these pipeline guys have a point?” Did you hear an argument from anyone that made you think twice?
The only argument that had any traction at all was the idea that this would create jobs: 1,500 temporary jobs and 32 permanent jobs. Personally, I never felt that such a small number of permanent jobs were a sufficient reason to risk those many Kentucky families’ health and safety.
I know this showed up in the movie a couple of times, but every time they were asked, “Will you commit to hiring Kentucky workers?” The pipeline representatives’ answer was always, “When we hire a contractor that will do this work, we will include language in that contract expressing our desire for them to hire local labor.” And that’s completely non-binding. So their answer to that question is ultimately no, but they phrased it in a way so that everyone in the room heard yes, so that was pretty slick—but I think a lot of people also saw through that.
The one case they made most frequently that I felt was particularly misleading was they kept arguing that, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, pipelines fail less frequently than any other method of transportation. Trucks, trains, even barges have more accidents than pipelines do—which is true—but what they failed to mention is that according to that very same data set, the damage from pipeline explosions or leaks is exponentially greater than all other transportation method combined.
It makes sense when you think about it because, a single truck, as bad as an accident can be, it’s still smaller—it’s only one truck’s worth of hazardous liquids as opposed to a mile’s worth. It’s also on a transportation route—a space that vehicles can get to easily. Most obviously, it’s localized and above ground, so it’s easier to clean up than an underground pipeline leak that has safety shutoff valves more than a mile apart from each other. Especially in Kentucky’s karst terrain, the leaks can really travel far before anybody is aware of them.
Natural Gas Liquids are a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing and have been legally deemed “hazardous” by the federal government.
Were you this knowledgeable about pipelines or these types of regulations before making the film?
Not a whole lot. I was aware generically about pipeline issues. Like a lot of people, when I heard the Bluegrass Pipeline was going to carry natural gas liquids, I assumed that was something similar to natural gas or even liquefied natural gas. But of course, they’re completely different animals.
NGLs generally aren’t an energy source. They’re used as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry, so NGLs are mostly used to manufacture cheap plastics—as opposed to natural gas or liquefied natural gas, which are energy sources.
A natural gas pipeline would, theoretically, offshoot and serve energy to consumers along its route, but the NGL pipeline wouldn’t have had any offshoots. It wouldn’t have served anyone in Kentucky, it just would’ve passed through down to Louisiana.
The reason they wanted to go to Louisiana was twofold. One, it’s because that’s where the American petrochemical industry is located. These NGLs are like slurry—it’s like crude oil, you can’t do anything with them until you refine them and process them. So the plants that can handle them are located down at the Gulf of Mexico.
Williams Company was also involved in building a major export facility that just happened to be right there at the end of the pipeline route, which really undercut their claim that this was for American energy. I mean, even their internal documents reveal that a big part of their plan was exporting this stuff overseas.
Sisters of Loretto singing “Amazing Grace” during a demonstration.
I want to return to the topic of eminent domain, which came up a lot in the film. Was there anyone you spoke to that had legitimate fears about having their property taken?
Lots of people were. Yeah, that came up pretty frequently in negotiations and discussions with property owners. The companies never actually filed eminent domain proceedings against anyone, but the conversations frequently went along the lines of, “We’re making you this offer for an easement through your property and you should really consider taking it because we have the power of eminent domain. So you can take this good offer now, or we’ll take you to court and you’ll probably get a lot less, so I recommend you take us up on this offer now.”
So they didn’t even have to file eminent domain in order to use it as an unjust negotiating tactic. They were using it to scare property owners into selling easements. That’s why citizens banded together and took them to court, it’s because they needed to clarify that the pipeline companies, in fact, did not have the power of condemnation. The nature of that court case—and I don’t know how well the movie made this clear—but that was a case that was initiated by our side of things.
And you won in court.
We did. The courts clarified the current eminent domain laws, which upheld the rights of the landowners. As far as legislation goes, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed an anti-eminent domain bill, but the Senate never took it up. It never even got a committee hearing.
Still, the pipeline companies did ultimately decide to suspend the project.
Right, but only because they couldn’t get enough customer commitments. NGLs come from the fracking industry—those companies sign long-term leases with pipeline companies to transport their NGLs to market. But they couldn’t get enough customers to make that long-term commitment.
That was part of our agenda throughout the entire process. That’s one reason we kept pushing forward in the legislature, even when it looked like we weren’t going to get a hearing in the Senate. That’s why we felt it was important to take them to court. And that’s why I was working hard on the PR end of things. We wanted to make it clear to Wall Street and to the investing class that this project wasn’t a done deal—it wasn’t a sure thing because there was a lot of opposition in Kentucky. Our hope was if we could convince enough of their potential customers that this was a bad investment, then they would have a harder time signing on. So, the grassroots opposition really did affect the outcome of the project.
Do you know what happens to the NGL’s if fracking companies can’t sell them? Are they just dumped somewhere?
Well, they used to be flared off, but the fracking industry has experienced a lot of decline in recent years. That’s largely because there was a huge boom when it first started, and the supply exceeded the demand, which caused prices to go down and the whole business became less profitable.
One of the incentives for fracking companies to push and sell these NGL’s is to boost the bottom line for a failing industry. Now, if they’re not going to go through the pipeline, they can still be transported via other means, but they’re just on truck or rail now. And the reason companies prefer pipelines is because it’s the most cost-effective way to transport these liquids – it’s less safe, slower, and less flexible than trucks and rail, but it’s cheaper.
For the pipeline companies, their argument has been, “If we can get this pipeline built – which would make fracking profitable again – then we can expand fracking in the Northeast.” So it’s our sense that preventing the pipeline actually slowed the expansion of fracking in the Northeast.
The End of the Line was awarded an IndieFEST Global Film ‘Award of Recognition’ in the category of “Liberation / Social Justice / Protest” in November 2015 and most recently won the Spirit of Activism Award at the 2016 Colorado Environmental Film Festival in February.
