Local Builder Steps In After Collier County Road Signs Honoring Charlie Kirk Spark Backlash

In a move that turned heads from Immokalee Road to social feeds across Southwest Florida, a stretch of highway renamed to honor conservative activist Charlie Kirk has ignited both community debate and private support.

County commissioners approved the “Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway” designation in October — a 15-mile segment of Immokalee Road between U.S. 41 and Oil Well Road — but when questions arose about funding for the commemorative signs, a local Naples builder stepped up to cover the cost.

Rather than have the county absorb the roughly $2,276 cost of four signs marking the newly designated corridor, Randy Johns, owner of Phoenix Associates of South Florida Inc., wrote a check to reimburse the county. Commissioners unanimously accepted the contribution during a Dec. 9 meeting.

County staff produced the four signs at the Collier County sign shop and installed them shortly after the initial vote in late October.

Charlie Kirk is widely known as the founder of Turning Point USA, a national conservative organization. His life tragically ended in September during an attack at a university event, a tragedy that spurred national attention and sparked the push for a memorial designation in Collier County.

Locally, the road-naming decision and subsequent sign installation prompted a cross-section of responses: some residents praised the memorial, others questioned its appropriateness as public wayfinding, and still more voiced concern about the political implications of using government resources for an honor tied to a national figure.

The private funding solution appears to strike a balance, allowing the signs to go up without burdening county coffers, while also keeping the broader conversation in the public sphere.

Typically, road naming and signage decisions are administrative or ceremonial in nature, attracting minimal controversy. However, in this case, county officials reported receiving hundreds of emails from residents weighing in both for and against the memorial designation during the initial decision phase.

That level of engagement underscored the polarization around the topic and set the stage for broader debate about how communities choose to honor national figures on local infrastructure.

With the signs now installed, courtesy of private reimbursement, county leadership says it expects the chatter around the designation to continue, both among residents and on social media channels.

For Phoenix Associates and its owner, the choice to fund the signs reflects a local businessman stepping into the space where politics, community pride, and public policy intersect.