i L i n d . n e t

For those of you who missed the comment left by a reader a few days ago:

“U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced the award of almost $3.5 million in grants to eight Honolulu-area organizations for educational improvement efforts under the No Child Left Behind Act……….
Honolulu — Keiki O Ka ‘Aina Family Learning Center, $376,859.”

The money keeps rolling in!

The state’s web portal has gotten a substantial facelift. Here’s the new version, with direct links to a number of online services, and you can compare it to the older interface. The new version has emphasized Gov. Lingle’s appearance on the main entry page with a larger photo and more prominent type for her press releases, while it has dropped Lt. Gov. Aiona’s photo, and no longer includes a direct link to the Aiona’s official web site. And the little picture that displays alongside the address in your web browser is now a flower, replacing the stylized “e” accompanied the earlier eHawaii.gov address.

I see that the state is seeking at least $50,000 to put state employees and their vehicles onto the SuperFerry for interisland travel. A request is pending approval of the State Procurement Office that would allow department heads to authorize ferry travel. It doesn’t appear that the state will be getting a special rate for government travelers. The contract is being handled as a sole source contract, meaning that bidding isn’t necessary, which appears to mean that the state would be paying standard rates offered to the public rather than a negotiated rate. I’m not sure that sounds like good business, for the public at least.

I ran into an interesting series on free public transit in a British Columbia paper that’s worth checking out. Honolulu offers heavy discounts already for senior citizens, but has steadily raised fares for most riders. The articles cite studies showing that as fares go up, ridership goes down. It’s a direct relation. You’ve got to wonder whether lowering standard fares, or reducing the monthly passes further, would boost use of Honolulu’s system even if we can’t move to a fully free system.

In Portland, Oregon, where we recently visited, transit is backed by a payroll tax on all employees, currently in the process of going from .0062 up to .0072 of payroll, which has allowed free transit service in the main Portland central area, and fares of $2 or less to surrounding areas with an integrated bus-rail system.

From the Online Journalism Review comes this piece on how newspapers can use the web more effectively.

And I got a call on my cell phone from an unknown California number the other day. A Google search turned up this web page tying the number to a mortgage telemarketing pitch. It is the first time I’ve run into telemarketing to cell phones, and to a complaint site of this kind.

Have an interesting Sunday.