The Longview City Council voted 5-2 to pull a resolution to rename part of Maple Street to Charlie Kirk Way from the agenda at Thursday's meeting.
However, the proposal still earned over an hour and a half of public comment, with 22 people taking a turn to speak in the packed council room.
All but one opposed renaming the street, citing concerns that the name was too politically divisive and that it was inappropriate to honor someone with no personal connection to Longview.
Several speakers who argued against the name change said that they personally supported Kirk and his views, but that they agreed naming a street after him would be too controversial.
Councilmembers Erik Halvorson and Keith Young, who submitted the resolution Sept. 15, voted against pulling it.
The resolution states that renaming the street, located next to Lower Columbia College between Olympia and Washington ways, is fitting because it recognizes "an individual whose mission was to defend and advance the rights of students."
Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah on Sept. 10, was the founder of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting conservative viewpoints in high schools and colleges.
Turning Point USA hosts two websites, Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist, which track college professors and school board members the organization views as promoting left-wing ideology. Professors who have been named on the website say they faced harassment and threats of violence as a result.
Renaming the street in Kirk's honor would "serve as a symbolic reminder of the City’s commitment to the First Amendment," the resolution states.
Changing the name of the street would change LCC's address, which Vice President of Administration Nolan Wheeler said would cost the school a minimum of $50,000 to reprint materials and update its records with various vendors, state agencies and grant funders.
The Associated Students of LCC wrote in a letter to the City Council that it opposes the change because of the financial burden it would place on the college. LCC recently had to reduce its budget by $1.8 million and dismiss some staff members due to state funding cuts.
"The financial implications this change would have on our campus are too burdensome and they would further impact the work of the institution towards the students and the community that we support," the letter states.
An LCC student who declined to be named said on Wednesday that naming a street after Kirk would serve as a reminder of violence, and that she would prefer to rename streets after people who make positive contributions, like funding scholarships or donating land for low-income housing.
Other officials around the country have also floated the idea of naming streets after Kirk. County commissioners in Lake County, Florida, voted Tuesday to rename a road in his honor. The same day, a Florida state representative filed a measure to rename a state road in Miami-Dade County.
