Month: December 2008

BP gives $5.5 million for Texas City parks

Congratulations to the residents of Texas City, who will benefit from a $5.5 million donation from BP to fund two new parks. They are expected to open within the next year.

TEXAS CITY
Gift will help pay for two new parks in city
By THAYER EVANS CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT
— Houston Chronicle2

A pledge of $5.5 million by BP will help fund two new parks in Texas City, one of which will be a 45-acre sportsplex that could open by the end of 2009.

The energy company already has provided $2.5 million, Mayor Matt Doyle said. Another $2 million will be given to the city next year and the remaining $1 million will come in 2010.

[snip]

The sportsplex will be called Magnolia Park and is estimated to cost $3.5 million, he said. The price of a 338-acre environmental park that will be called Central Park is not yet known.

The city already owns the property for both parks, Doyle said.

In addition to the parks, approximately $500,000 of BP’s pledge will be spent on solar panels for the new $4.5 million Sanders-Vincent Community Center, a 15,000-square-foot facility, which is being built on five acres in the 500 block of Third Ave. N.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

PR jobs up

“Employment Report: Total PR Jobs Up 4.2%, Advertising Down 2.1%” reports MediaBistro from an Advertising Age report. MediaBistro writes:

[snip] …one part of the issue we’re especially interested in is the U.S.
Media and Advertising/Marketing-Services Jobs report. According to
AdAge’s numbers, PR gained 2,100 jobs from 12/07 to 10/08, which
accounts to a 4.2% overall increase. Meanwhile, ad agencies saw a loss
of 4,000 jobs for a 2.1% overall decrease.

The hottest growth sectors overall were Internet Media Cos./Web
Portals, which grew by 6.5% and Cable TV, which grew by 5.2%. Read the
full report here.

Interesting. Yet I keep running into PR professionals that are looking for jobs.

UH-Clear Lake as a four-year school?

The Houston Chronicle’s Inside the Bay Area asks the question “should UH-Clear lake be a four-year university?” From a quote in that blog post:

For the community, the benefit is that we’d be able to reach out to more students. The number of high school students in Texas will increase my 25 % between now and 2012.

Interesting. What do you think?

Gates Foundation gives $6.9 million for broadband in libraries

Gates Foundation supports broadband in libraries
— Houston Chronicle2

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is revisiting its commitment to American libraries by awarding $6.9 million in grants to upgrade public libraries in seven states to faster Internet connections.

The grants announced Thursday will help libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Virginia. The money goes to Connected Nation, a nonprofit broadband advocacy group, and the American Library Association.

A recent report compiled by the American Library Association says 73 percent of public libraries are the only source of free, public Internet access in their communities. But a third of libraries have Internet connections that are too slow to access multimedia content.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

California build free law school

Free law school? SoCal university makes it reality
— Houston Chronicle2

A new law school opening next fall in Southern California is offering a big incentive to top students who might be thinking twice about the cost of a legal education during the recession: free tuition for three years.

The financial carrot is part of an ambitious strategy by Erwin Chemerinsky, a renowned constitutional law scholar and dean of the new school at the University of California, Irvine, to attract Ivy League-caliber students to the first public university law school in the state in 40 years.

Scholarship winners will be chosen for their potential to emerge three years later as legal stars on the ascendance. Only the best and brightest need apply, but the school hopes to offer full scholarships to all 60 members of its inaugural class in 2009. Subsequent classes will be on a normal tuition basis.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.