Trevor Graham kicked off track at NCSU

We agree on Graham. Understand that a state school is built on state land. Also, the state does not ever own land, but it is entrusted to manage that land in the interests of its taxpayers. When you start creating policy that restricts access and creates barriers to public use of land and facilities that are the property of the people, you are breaking the rule of law, at its very core.

Again, though -- how far can this be taken? should the chem labs be open? Should local high school kids be allowed to play with the lasers?

Although I don't know the specifics of the law, I do know the campus police regularly hand out trespass violations. So I suspect this isn't entirely true.

What about public elementary schools? Should people be allowed unfettered access to young kids because their tax dollars paid for the building?

I asked in a previous post about using the basketball arena for a pick-up game? Using the stadium for some flag football? What about hunting on state lands set aside as protective habitat? My tax payments must allow me to shoot the animals since I own it, right?

The university is exercising reasonable restriction of access.

Wow look at this. We took a thread that was ripe for a flame war and turned it into a debate about access to public institutions.

This has to be a first :-)

See, now you're being stupid a-holes and using absurd examples which only make you look ridiculous. When laws are set up to protect people from harm or to manage reources so that they are available for everyone, they are good. when organizations make rules that go against their very state constitutions to exclude community from fair usage of state lands and facilities without rational reasoning (or for selfish reasoning), they are breaking the law.

isn't the rational reasoning not wearing them out prematurely? state funding of universities has fallen to about 25% of their budgets; tracks and other athletic facilities tend to be built largely without public funding today. seems to me that if these places restrict usage to the public to about 25% of the time or so, that's quite reasonable.

chuck d wrote:

isn't the rational reasoning not wearing them out prematurely? state funding of universities has fallen to about 25% of their budgets; tracks and other athletic facilities tend to be built largely without public funding today. seems to me that if these places restrict usage to the public to about 25% of the time or so, that's quite reasonable.

The only people who use that rationale are people who know little about facilities. They were built to be used.

State schools get the majority of their facilities funding from line item appropriations in the state budgets. After they are constructed, that is when the outside money comes in, like when naming rights are sold and vendor contracts come into play.

A 25% public usage (with affordable rates) would be a wet dream for most communities, something they will never see, ever. Most schools see these buildings as revenue streams for trade shows and refuse to consider community suage for recreation and fitness/wellness needs unless they are unable to sell specific dates at absurd fees.

This the problem. Who gets to decide what is selfish? Let's take a specific case from the NC State police logs, even though it really is absurd :-)

NC State has had problems in recent years with men fondling themselves in front of students in the library (DH Hill). No joke. So is the staffer in the following report being selfish for not wanting this non-student in the library?

5P0000132 8:19 PM

Suspicious Person/ Trespass/ Arrest

A DH Hill staff member called reporting a subject he knew had been trespassed from DH Hill. An officer located the non-student. File checks indicated that the subject was trespassed from NCSU Campus in October 2004. The subject was arrested for trespass and transported to Wake County Jail.

you know, when i was in law school at a public university, i recall paying pretty darn ridiculous fees for "recreational facilities", libraries (always open to public, for free), arts fees (open to the public, sometimes for fee, sometimes not) and that nebulous "general fee" which covered just about everything else. unless this place was pulling the wool over tens of thousands of students, i rather doubt that these facilities were intended to be open to the public at low rates. i was a student, the one this shit was primarily built for, and my fees for this stuff everyone claims should be open to the public were pretty darn high. maybe when these universities were chartered 125+ years ago the idea was for things to be low-cost for students and the public. the times have changed. the era of government hand-outs is over.

a bunch of people who don't know a darn thing about funding bitching about it on a runnning board seems silly; not one of us knows exactly how these things are funded or what all the the "laws" and "constitutions" actually say and mean.

you're are make a fallacious argument, basically comparing apples to oranges

I'm not that familiar with NCSU, as I've only been to the track once or twice -- is there any possibility that the University's athletic corporation owns the land?

Non-students have access to the DH Hill Library. The University reserves the right to revoke this access.

Non-students have access to the Paul Derr Track. The University reserves the right to revoke this access.

and if Graham or his athletes fondle themselves or others at the track, they should be banned....if ncsu has a fondling room, then it would be appropriate to discuss the issue in this context, but this is not the issue, we are talking about people using a facility for its intended purpose...

Is that what we are talking about? The thread started along a different vein.

"we are talking about people using a facility for its intended purpose..."

That is interesting, the next time I feel like taking PED's and yelling at college students I'll go use NC State track since that is it's intended purpose.

It's purpose is to PROVIDE A FACILITY FOR NC STATE TRACK AND FIELD, AND THE UNIVERSITY. Support for Olympians is not obligatory, especially ones who bring disrepute to the university.

And taxes do not pay for NC States track:

2004 Raleigh Relays Team Entry Fee: $300 men, $300 women.

80 teams present, 80 x $600 = $480,000.

Cost of officials = free. Race Numbers = $100. Flags = $500 every ten years. Tents = $1000 every five years. Accutrack with and website entry, results, etc. = $5000.

I say they shouldn't have any problems turning a profit. And that's just Raleigh Relays, they charge entrance at the HS Champs, but that's just small potatoes compared to the half mill.

m

There is a fondling room here? Where do I sign up?

In all seriousness this is indeed a gray area. It's kind of like using the "I know it when I see it" argument when trying to define pornography. I've wondered myself if I was trespassing on empty HS tracks on occasion. Because I pay taxes for the school I suppose I could claim right to use them. But I also understand the school/parents/etc. don't want random people wandering around with the school children.

In this case I suspect the university just found a convenient excuse to remove someone who was causing them PR headaches. Hell, what do I know. I'm just a jogger anyway. But I do know I won't miss having them around. Don't get me wrong, they seemed like nice guys. Never got in my way for no reason - as opposed to the football team who plods en masse across the track when using an adjacent practice field. And I sure as hell didn't get in theirs. But I didn't really like the fact that every time the local news did a story on BALCO the backdrop was NC State.

60 x800=48,000