technology is "hard"

[kalakoa]

Your tax dollars at work:

http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-ne...ot-working

I think there's an overall problem with vendor selection; criteria should be "competence" not "nepotism".

[pander75]

Meanwhile, the rest of the non-government world seems to have an easy enough time video chatting with Skype or FaceTime. They also happen to be free.

[kalakoa]

Maybe this waste is why the State "doesn't have any extra money this year".

Bills in the state Legislature ... each of those measures failed to pass ... would have provided $1,155,595 to the Hawaii Academy of Arts and Science Public Charter School, $571,213 to the Kua O Ka La Public Charter School and $256,343 to the medical center for costs associated with preparing for the lava flow

http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/loc...arketplace

(The worthless A/V system cost between $400K and $1.2M -- nobody really knows for sure.)

[Rob Tucker]

Kenoi makes sure his consultants and vendors get well paid though. High priority. State too. I read where they are going to spend half a million dollars to build a batting cage at a school. A chunk of that will be kick backs to DOE managers.

[snorkle]

It is true that our County's Mayor doesn't spend State DOE money wisely. Neither does NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

And yet both the mayor & commissioner oversee "nonprofit" entities with vast amounts of tax money spent on their programs. Goodell may not be directly in charge of government expenditures, yet his boys get 30+ football stadiums paid for by the taxpayers. Mayors & commissioners know it's best for money to travel in a circuitous connect-the-dots fashion. People usually lose interest after the second or third dot.

[pahoated]

Back to the article. This is the teleconferencing for testimony and everybody should know that isn't even in HD.

The bigger question is who is Out of the Sea and how did they get the contract from the county, especially since they needed to subcontract out most of the work? Specifically, which council person was in charge of the selection of contractor for the county? This was a county council action, not a mayor action.

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[kalakoa]

This was a county council action

Per article:

County Clerk Stewart Maeda hired in-house staffers in January ... full council met with the new workers in a 20-minute closed-door session in January that was neither noticed nor open to the public.

I wonder what made this meeting "sensitive" enough to be exempt from public disclosure. I also wonder where the money came from (salaries, whatever new equipment they might buy).

This, too:

Four years after buying the system, the county in January finally tried to use it

"Spent the money but didn't check to see if it worked."

[pahoated]

The incompetence is with the company Out of the Sea Media. They are the ones that don't have the technical capability. This isn't as simple as a one-to-one or room-to-room videoteleconference system like Skype or Google Hangout. It has to handle multiple feeds, a few from satellite like a couple of the new ones in Kau and HOVE, plus they are trying to make it inter-island compatible. They obviously didn't pay the extra money for noise canceling microphones. The county has had a turnover in several departments and this is the new guy finding out about an unsat contract that he had no part of. He deserves credit for raising the flag. There is probably a much deeper story here but it looks like the county figured out they need a new contractor.
http://spo3.hawaii.gov/notices/notices/rfp-3140


"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[kalakoa]

The incompetence is with the company Out of the Sea Media.

Meaning: this vendor was selected for reasons other than their technical competence, possibly because there was nobody available who knew any better.

his isn't as simple as a one-to-one or room-to-room

An industrial-strength commercial solution from a name-brand vendor would have cost less than $100K. Example: Polycom RMX2000 and a half-dozen Group500 rigs, which system would have plenty of capacity for additional remote participants (voice and/or video; the Windows client looks to be about $65).

a few from satellite

Symptom of a larger problem. Existing broadband companies should be required to actually provide service, especially in population centers that are dense enough to justify a videotel rig for public participation in government affairs.

(...and in case anyone wonders "why don't you participate", the answer is simple: this government is not interested in "solutions". I'm ready to get involved just as soon as the situation evolves beyond the nepotistic "raises and contracts for my buddies" system as currently exists.)