Hialeah is the sixth largest city in Florida, the second in the country with the highest percentage of the population speaking Spanish, and is now looking to expand.
“We’re talking about a Hialeah for the next twenty or thirty years…and what we see we can do today to build that foundation in part is maybe look at opportunities for expansion “said Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo.
Expansion opportunities that are on the agenda of the city council that they have planned to present this Tuesday.
A cost-benefit analysis is currently underway to annex part of the area known as Brownsville, east of the present city, to Hialeah.
“The city is analyzing whether it’s practical and feasible, whether we can take over this area,” Mayor Bovo explained.
But voices have already been raised to say that the annex, which would include an industrial warehouse district and a residential area, would have a negative economic impact.
Dr. Enid Pinkney, historian at Brownsville Historic Hampton House, asks, “Please don’t let anyone steal your heritage, because they won’t sympathize with them, or your culture and your heritage.”
The historian of Hampton House, a historic site in the Brownsville area, said at an event Monday night hosted by the local Neighbors Civic Association that the annex would pose a risk to that community.
Mily Herrera, a Hialeah community activist, doesn’t like to take any risks either: “Look at the area west of I-75 how badly these residents and the taxes they pay have suffered. We don’t have enough police, firefighters, and public service workers, as they think then now, to add to the pain of the city even further.
In addition to the Hialeah Town Hall Council meeting, this Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., the subject will be discussed. Also at the Church of Christ in the Brownsville neighborhood, the neighborhood association will meet at 6:30 p.m.