Last week, the Miami-Dade County Commission approved the renaming of a library and a park in the suburb of West Kendall. They went from West Kendall to West End Regional Library and West End District Park.
This renaming is part of a multi-year plan by District 11 Commissioner Juan Zapata to create an area called "West End."
We received an overwhelming amount of feedback about this issue, most of it negative. Read some responses in the slideshow at the top of this post.
Zapata cites a study he requested from Florida International University to explain the West End strategic plan. The study mentions investments in transportation, alternative transportation and new employment opportunities in the area.
But after the library and park were renamed, most people we heard from opposed the motion, and any further rebranding of West Kendall. Many of the audience members who wrote us said they hadn't been informed about the measures. Zapata says he's been alerting his constituents throughout the rebranding process.
One listener, community activist Michael Rosenberg, wrote a poem describing why he opposes the West End initiative.
The proposed West End would include District 11, which is inside West Kendall save for a bit in the northeast corner, and pieces of four other county commissioners' districts.
The FIU study defines the West End as "the area bound by Florida's Turnpike on the east, Southwest 152nd Street on the south, Krome Avenue on the west, and the Tamiami Trail (Southwest 8th Street) on the north."
This map shows the boundaries of Zapata's District 11, the West End and West Kendall. Click the icon on the top left to toggle the boundaries and see them individually or overlapping.
