For years, school officials have been lamenting the state's underfunding of transportation.

Without adequate funding from the state, they say, districts must devote more and more of their local levy dollars to get kids to school.

One of their loudest charges: the state doesn't reimburse districts for transporting students whose homes or daycares lie outside a one-mile radius from school. And instead of calculating the actual route mileage, the distance is measured as a direct line from school to home or daycare. Or, in the colloquial, "as the crow flies."

Actually, says Allan Jones with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state does provide some money to bus kids within the one-mile radius. But not much.

Jones, director of pupil transportation, says the state gives districts some funding based on the total number of kids in kindergarten through through fifth grade within the one-mile radius.

The original intent was to help districts defray the cost of transporting youngsters who faced hazardous walking conditions, even though they lived close to school.

But it's a lower rate than what the state funds for students living outside the one-mile minimum. And the districts don't have to have hazardous walking conditions to get the money. They don't even have to use the money to transport kids within that radius.

Here's how Jones explains it, and the "crow flies" business in an e-mail to The News Tribune.

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Maybe not the landfill, but where ever contractors working on the Park Plaza South project put their old concrete and rebar.

The Tacoma Daily Index has this item about demolition of the hillclimb between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street. At the lower right is evidence of the entry to the Escalade, Tacoma's famous moving sidewalks that were meant to ease travel up and down the hills of the shopping district. And we had the name before Cadillac did.

Here are some pix from the TNT morgue showing the excitement surrounding the opening. And yes, those do look like mink coats.

And this one from the Northwest Room of the Tacoma Public Library.

As near as I can tell, the final archaelogical evidence of the system is beneath Park Plaza North, the stairway tunnel that leads from the Commerce Street bus stops to Pacific near 10th Street.

Army 1st Sgt. Jose Crisostomo was a hero, an inspiration and a buddy, according to his grandchildren.

During a crowded and tear-filled mass today at Our Lady Queen of Heaven in Spanaway, they described how he loved them and encouraged them to live better lives, even more so than his.

Now, the soldier who died Aug. 18 in Afghanistan, less than two weeks before his 60th birthday, is their angel.

Tricia Crisostomo-Meyers, his daughter, said her father wanted to reenlist in the Army in 2008.

"When dad told us he wanted to go back to active Army service, I thought he was nuts,"she said, adding Crisostomo signed up for another year after his first tour was over.

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It felt somber the minute I heard the cadence music coming from where the memorial to Army 1st. Sgt. Jose Crisostomo was parked.

Today marks the memorial for the 59-year-old Spanaway man who was killed last week in Afghanistan. The viewing and Mass took place at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Church.

Driving up, the church's exterior was lined with Patriot Guard Riders holding American flags. Parked near the church entrance was a Chevy pickup truck, the back of which served as a makeshift memorial to Crisostomo, who was a leader in the local Chamorro community.

If featured the ceremonial boots, rifle, helmet and dog tags, also known as a soldier's cross. The bed was lined with greenery and Guam flags, a testament to the Chamorro heritage of "Sinbad," as friends and family called him.

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