Following a tense discussion and public comment period, the Lake County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday to support a resolution that would designate a portion of Schofield Road as the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway.
Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was fatally shot Sept. 10 while speaking at an event on the campus of Utah Valley University.
In an effort to memorialize Kirk, Commissioner Anthony Sabatini — who described Kirk as “one of the most famous and respected members of my generation” and “one of the greatest Americans who has ever lived” — put forward a resolution that would see installation of a memorial highway marker on Schofield Road from U.S. Highway 27 to the Orange County line.
Sabatini initially chose Wellness Way, within his district, because of its status as a prominent road that many people in Central Florida know and travel every day.
“How a person could be opposed to naming a road for somebody of such national significance, one of less than 700 people in the history of the country to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom as announced is coming in the following days, is beyond me,” he said. “Especially when you have thousands and thousands of unnamed roads in this county and throughout the state of Florida.”
While the road would remain Schofield Road for addressing and title purposes, the memorial designation would be added as a brown sign reminiscent of other memorial highway signs across the county and state.
While other commissioners acknowledged they would rather have waited several months before bringing the resolution forward, all agreed that Kirk was worth memorializing for his “dialogue with young people”.
“There are ways to honor people and while apparently some of you in the room and some people that have written emails to us disagree that he should be honored, I am one that believes that somebody like that should be honored,” Commission Chair Leslie Campione said. “The fact that you talk about policies that you may believe are racial policies or that somehow make someone racist because they bring up a topic, this is America. You should be able to talk about policies.”
Commissioner Kirby Smith said Kirk was “as truthful as someone can be” and said many of Kirk’s opponents take his words out of context when seeing clips or videos they deem racist or inflammatory.
“If people would listen to the entire conversation instead of taking what they hear from somebody else off Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever, doing their own research, you would see this guy was a true Christian just trying to help America,” Smith said.
While commissioners shared their personal thoughts before opening up for public comment, several meeting attendees shouted against them, arguing Kirk was a divisive political figure unworthy of reverence.
Dozens of county residents showed up to share their thoughts on Kirk, with most drumming up sentiment either in vehement support or opposition to the resolution.
Many of the arguments made in opposition stemmed from Kirk’s previous comments about prominent Black women “lacking brain processing power” to be taken seriously, a few gun deaths being “worth” maintaining the Second Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being a “mistake.”
Commissioner Campione interrupted public comment to clarify her belief that Kirk was being taken out of context when speaking about the Civil Rights Act, pointing out that his comments were an argument about how the law was being applied to Voter ID requirements.
“I just felt like that particular fact needed to be addressed because that’s not what he stood for, what he stood for was having a debate about whether we should require voter ID today,” she said.
Lake County resident Susan Polanko said many of Kirk’s comments “cannot be taken out of context”, pointing to a Kirk quote from January 2024 on The Charlie Kirk Show where he said that if he sees a Black pilot while boarding a plane, he would think “Boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
Polanko also read Kirk’s views on Islam, quoting Kirk earlier this year saying, “America has freedom of religion, but in reality, large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.”
“I am so very sorry for the death of Charlie Kirk, but the problem I have in affirming his life is that he simply did not affirm the life or have empathy for the lives of all Americans,” she said.
Michael Watkins, Lake County resident and pastor of Friendship CME Church in Tavares, said he agreed with Kirk’s religious views and personal family values but condemned his statements about Black women and the response to his death.
“When he talked about Jesus being the savior and that family values meant something, that dialogue is important and I agree with it,” he said. “I share it every Sunday … but there’s some things he said that are troublesome and it ain’t taken out of context, it’s taken right from his mouth. He said he was unapologetic about it.”
In response to several public comments calling Kirk “divisive” and racist and after more than 90 minutes of public comment, commissioners reiterated their initial support for the resolution.
“What bothers me the most are my Black friends in Lake County because I feel like they believe that Charlie Kirk was racist,” Campione said. “I don’t think he was racist and I wouldn’t vote in favor of this if I thought he was racist … I think it’s really unfair to characterize somebody as a racist because he wanted to debate something about DEI. It’s OK to talk about it.”
Following public comment, commissioners finalized details about the sign’s location and verbiage — opting for “Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway” — and shifted the initial planned location from Wellness Way to Schofield Road. The resolution passed unanimously 5-0.
Contact me at jwilkins@orlandosentinel.com or 407-754-4980.