Are you against the News-Journal Center Acquisition?

I was reading some of the comments on Daytona State College’s buy-out of the News-Journal Center. These ones were the most biting:

If you are sick and tired of this topic and want to voice objection to the Daytona State take over of the N-J Center, contact your State Representative and State Senator to block Florida legislative approval. With the cut backs in state funding for public safety and education, the $700,000 of state funding can possibly be blocked. Daytona State does not need to assume responsibility for this project. They already have a fine facility. Show me another community college with a theatre the size of the N-J Center. If Daytona State wants to spend tax dollars, it would be better spent on campus in student related matters.

Sharples just doesnt want to be outdone by Bethune Cookman. His ego is ridiculous. The college could use that money in other areas of the college.

Let me get this straight. Tippen Davidson used company money to support this money losing endeavor, of which he only controlled 51% so his minority partner’s involuntarily paid for 49% of his generosity. And of the 51% that he did control I am sure he used his charitable donation tax deductions to reduce his tax bill thereby allowing tax payers to help foot the bill. Now a judge says the News Journal can’t do this anymore SOOOO the thearter decides to dump the whole thing on the nit wits that run Daytona Beach College and allow the state to foot the bill for this money pit and they gets to keep his company name on the building!! WHAT DEAL or BOONDOOGLE

I’ve been to the college’s theater at building 220 at the Daytona campus. It’s beautiful. Hundreds of seats, great acoustics, lighting, and layout. Does a “community college” need a huge theater? I agree with the first comment, in that I haven’t heard of any others with a theater as grandiose as the News-Journal’s.

We know Sharples wants to shed the community-college roots. All the press releases brag that the school is getting bigger, expanding, growing, becoming ever larger and more bureaucratic. Does that really benefit the students? Does moving the theater three miles from the campus benefit the students?

Sometimes I wonder. Leave me a comment and tell me: are you for the News-Journal Center acquisition, or the college’s continued expansion in general? Why or why not? There are plenty of good reasons from either side, but we’ll get a much better general opinion from blog comments than press releases.