{"id":39790,"date":"2025-11-11T14:38:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swopehealth.org\/?p=39790"},"modified":"2025-11-12T08:56:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T14:56:28","slug":"one-on-one-with-swope-health-selina-zapata-bur-josh-boehm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swopehealth.org\/one-on-one-with-swope-health-selina-zapata-bur-josh-boehm\/","title":{"rendered":"One-on-one with Swope Health: Selina Zapata Bur & Josh Boehm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Swope Health announces a new edition of its podcast, One on One with Swope Health, featuring a conversation on the Re-Connect Westside initiative, with Selina Zapata Bur, planning manager, Kansas City Public Works, and Josh Boehm, project manager with WSP, an engineering and urban planning firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Wesson, founder and publisher of The Next Page KC, a newspaper focused on the Black community, hosts the show\u2019s conversations with Kansas Citians about issues of importance to the community\u2019s health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project to Reconnect the Westside<\/a> is a city-led initiative focused on restoring connections within the Westside neighborhood addressing historic challenges caused by the construction of I-35 and I-670. The project works in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Transportation and uses a $1 million grant for this Planning and Environmental Linkages Study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative, Selina and Josh say, prioritizes listening to the community and engaging community members in the planning. The Westside neighborhood was made up of 14,000 residents in the 1940s, when the interstate freeways were initially built; the neighborhood now contains about 3,300 people. The interstate caused the displacement of homes and businesses, while creating a physical barrier with noise and air quality issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project was launched with the bipartisan infrastructure law that acknowledged impacts of interstate development. Josh said the city recognized an opportunity to correct the harm and improve safety and efficiency. With the highways now aging, there will be requirements for state investment \u2013 and this project can give the community a voice in those coming investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThis is a very community-driven process, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s intended to be,\u201d said Selina. \u201cThis is about the community and making the quality of life better for the West side, connecting the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n