‘President Donald J. Trump Avenue’ is coming to Miami-Dade County

Former President Donald Trump holds a sign with Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo at a campaign rally in Hialeah, Fla., Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

President-elect Donald Trump is getting his own street in Florida’s most populous county.

Miami-Dade Commissioners approved a resolution by Kevin Marino Cabrera to name Palm Avenue in the city of Hialeah “President Donald J. Trump Avenue.”

The measure, which Juan Carlos Bermudez co-sponsored, passed 9-1.

Marleine Bastien cast the sole “no” vote, sternly asserting her dissent ahead of the Commission’s agenda setting Tuesday.

Cabrera, a former lobbyist who led Trump’s 2020 election effort in Florida, celebrated the street naming in a statement just before noon.

“President Trump exemplifies true public service, enduring immense scrutiny and relentless attacks — all in the name of serving the American people. He left behind a successful career as a businessman to serve our nation without asking for anything in return, tirelessly fighting for our families, livelihoods, and freedoms,” he said.

“Our community deeply understands and appreciates the sacrifice, work and dedication of President Trump. By naming Palm Avenue — a vital artery that runs through the heart of Hialeah and serves as a hub for local businesses and cultural identity — we are forever immortalizing Trump’s legacy.”

Hialeah Council members voted more than a year ago to rename the historic road after the former — and future — President. The vote came in opposition to a unanimous but nonbinding vote by the city’s Historic Preservation Board opposing the designation.

But county approval was necessary for the city to hang “President Donald J. Trump Avenue” signs on county property.

The vote Tuesday included a waiver of the Commission’s normal procedure of having the Commission Auditor’s Office complete a background check and report its findings to the panel.

That policy has been in place since 2013, when the Commission — which then included Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo, who led the push for the Trump renaming — unanimously agreed to be more stringent about its street designations. The county previously removed signs naming sections of Southwest 16th Street after Jose Canseco after the former baseball player was arrested on charges ranging from illegal possession of a firearm and steroid use to aggravated battery.

On May 30, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments he made to an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 election. He is the first former President convicted of a crime and faced three other pending criminal cases in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C., relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

In a statement to the Miami Herald following Tuesday’s vote, Bastien, a Democrat, cited “falsehoods about Haitians eating cats and dogs in Ohio” during a September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris and the President-elect’s “derogatory comments about Haiti, Mexico, and some African countries in the past” as reasons for her “no” vote.

Four other Democrats on the Commission — Vice Chair Kionne McGhee, Danielle Cohen Higgins, Micky Steinberg and Oliver Gilbert, the immediate past Chair — voted for the renaming.

Chair Anthony Rodriguez and members Raquel Regalado and Rob Gonzalez joined Cabrera and Bermudez in voting “yes.”

Democrats Keon Hardemon and Eileen Higgins were absent, as was Republican René García.

Bovo celebrated the vote on X, congratulating the Miami-Dade Commissioners who supported the item and the Hialeah City Council “who had endorsed this effort from the moment President Trump visited Hialeah.”

Trump won Hialeah by 53 percentage points on Nov. 5.

“We appreciate the collaborative effort with the county,” Bovo wrote, “and look forward to the President’s visit for the official unveiling.”

Trump’s name adorning a notable thoroughfare in Miami-Dade will further accentuate a severe rightward shift in the county, whose voters sided with GOP candidates up and down the ticket last month. All five of Miami-Dade’s constitutional offices — Sheriff, Clerk, Tax collector, Property Appraiser and Supervisor of Elections — went to Republican candidates, and Trump’s victory marked the first time this century that voters in the county chose a Republican over a Democratic presidential candidate.