If tots can’t get to preschool, take preschool to tots

Aulii Malia Kanuha received a priceless gift at age 4, and it wasn’t even her birthday.

The tot was one of 35 recently to graduate from Ka Paalana Traveling Preschool, which educates about 700 homeless children a year, going right where they are at shelters or tents on the beach.

This is clearly a success story, and it will take more of these to fulfill the aims of the preschool outreach in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s agenda. The governor has just signed the bill expanding the tuition subsidies for poorer children unable otherwise to attend preschool.

These grants will be directed primarily to more conventional campus-based programs, but there’s something to applaud about the Ka Paalana approach. It delivers the goods to the kids without much overhead — literally. You can’t get much more direct-delivery than that.

Time to drum up more convention business to isles

Pennsylvania’s SMG calls itself the "gold standard" of public facility management and operates dozens of convention centers in the United States, but its low earnings for the Hawai‘i Convention Center have resulted in its exit.

Enter AEG Facilities of Los Angeles, which manages only six convention centers but none in America, to begin operating the convention center in Honolulu come Jan. 1. Taxpayers were promised at the opening in 1998 that the convention center would generate $1.9 billion in its first decade but has averaged only $526 million a year in visitor spending.

AEG has "expertise in managing convention centers with a global marketing presence," said Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. "Filling hotel rooms will definitely be part of our expectations." Count the money a year and half from now.