The Colorado Springs City Council approved a resolution honoring the U.S. Senate’s designation of October 14, 2025, as the National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA. The resolution was introduced by Councilor Brandy Williams, who compared the assasination of Kirk to President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr before presenting a highlight reel of Kirk’s speeches. The resolution passed with Councilors Williams, Lynette Crow-Iverson, David Leinweber, Brian Risley, and Tom Bailey voted in support of the resolution. Dave Donelson, Nancy Henjum, Kimberly Gold, and Roland Rainey Jr. voted against it.
“Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood, and I support the strongest penalty for his murderer, which in the state of Utah is death,” said Donelson, who has often supported conservative causes on council, such as defunding Colorado Springs Pride, but has split with other conservative members of council over development issues and the matter of the closure of the Rockrimmon Library. “Beyond that, what I worry about as the City Council, here in Colorado Springs, in doing things like this, we aren’t seen as an apolitical body. We’re not elected as Republicans. We’re not elected as Democrats. We’re just elected to do certain things for the citizens of Colorado Springs, and essentially those things are provide public safety, take care of our roads, take care of our parks — things like that. It may not be glamorous, it’s not national news, but it’s what we’re elected to do. What worries me is that we alienate — and we’ve seen that with the emails we’ve received. We’ve received probably almost 200 emails now, and I’ve seen three that were in support of this, and all the others were against it. We’re alienating citizens and we need to maintain their belief in us as fair and apolitical, so regardless of my personal feelings about Charlie Kirk or what he spoke about, I think this is a mistake.”
Leinweber questioned the content of the emails in opposition to the resolution. “The emails we got were despicable,” he said. “Several emails were full of raging hate … I want to elevate what Charlie Kirk represented. He represented a civil discourse.”
Kirk built his reputation arguing with college students about LGBTQ issues, race, and gender. Kirk had been a regular speaker in Colorado. In 2018 his speech at Colorado State University in Fort Collins attracted members of both white supremacist and anti-fascists groups, which escalated into a violent confrontation outside of the event. Kirk also addressed crowds at CU-Boulder and Fervent Church (now Brave Church) in Colorado Springs. Kirk was scheduled to speak in Woodland Park as part of the Truth and Liberty Conference prior to his assassination.
“What I’m struggling with is the naming of one person who is very polarizing,” said Henjum.
Councilor Gold considered the resolution a waste of time. “What our body is doing and has been doing is failing you,” said Kimberly Gold. “We have failed you with focusing on our city with our Karmen Line Annexation, which you, the people, overruled. We have failed you with the closure of Meadows Park [Community Center]. We have failed you with wasting your time with not one, but three, non-sanctuary city resolutions that don’t meant anything. We have failed the 1% of our staff of the City of Colorado Springs that we have had to lay off. Those are people who are entering in the fourth quarter of this year with no job. That is failure. We have failed you when we go into 2025 with no fire academy. I am asking you the people to look at every one of us up here. Look at our election timelines, and make sure you vote for people who focus on our city and not political performance.
