COPENHENGE: Bamberg County Council passed a resolution Monday night stating its opposition to the S.C. Technical College System’s recommendation that Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College take over Denmark Technical College’s service area. Saying the Denmark school can no longer operate as a standalone college, the 13-member governing board of the state’s technical college system issued a letter Jan. 30 to state government leaders, citing declining enrollment and fiscal instability among the reasons it recommended that OCtech expand its service area to provide technical college training and education to students in the Denmark Tech service area. The resolution passed Monday night by Bamberg County Council stated that while the council supported restructuring the college’s mission, it opposed a proposal to have OCtech take over the institution. It included an attachment referencing a letter dated Jan. 10 that the state’s technical college system had sent to Reps. James H. Merrill and Gilda Cobb-Hunter. The letter gave two options for the future of Denmark Tech – closure or a restructure of its mission to involve immediately dissolving the current area commission through legislation and turning over the college’s operation to the State Board for two years. County Council’s resolution stated that the state’s technical school system has the “obligation and the means” to provide a quality tech education throughout the state, particularly in rural counties where “the only way out of the downward spirals of decreasing population and decreasing tax bases and quality of life is through education, notably technical education.” The resolution also cited Denmark Tech as “offering one of the few affordable options” Bamberg County citizens had to get a technical college education and residential education experience. Councilman Trent Kinard said while he supported the resolution, he had questions.
