giants reconsider marketing Cola tactics on school campuses by Martha Groves Los Angeles Times March 13, 2001 Coca-Cola Co. on Wednesday will announce changes in the way it mar kets products in public schools - an attempt to address complaints from parents and others about fatty, sugary snacks and excessive commercialism on campus Among other shifts, the com pany said it will urge its bottlers not to seek exclusive contracts with districts and will promote a wider array of beverages, in- cluding more with calcium and vitamins. It will also make avail able vending machines featuring a school mascot or commercial- free glass fronts, rather than the Coca-Cola logo. In recent years, cash-strapped districts nationwide have nego tiated lucrative, exclusive contracts with soda and snack vendors. Big high schools have reaped as much as $lOO,OOO a year in extra rev enues to buy band uniforms, fund field trips and support team sports. Under the exclusive contracts, the more cans of soda or bottles of juice drinks sold, the more money for schools. But the arrangement has increas ingly come under fire from parents, school leaders and legislators, who note the hypocrisy of preaching good nutrition in the classrooms while ped dling empty calories in the halls. They point to research linking soft Solar power shines amid energy crisis by Hugo Martin Los Angeles Times March 14,2001 Solar power, believed by many to have gone out of style vvith tie-dyed shirts and love-ins, is back in fashion, thanks largely to California’s energy crisis. Throughout the state, dealers and manufacturers of so lar panel systems are reporting an increase in sales. State and local grant programs for residents and business own ers who install such systems have been inundated with applications. “We can’t get them in fast enough,” said Steve Radenbaugh, owner of Los Angeles-based Bilt-Well Root ing and Solar, who recently hired extra workers to handle a doubling of orders for solar electricity systems in the past month. The biggest drawback to rooftop solar energy systems has always been the high cost, with typical residential set ups costing $15,000 to $BO,OOO. At such prices, it can take 15 years or more to pay off the investment in energy sav ings. But with new rebate programs and the threat of higher energy rates, such an investment has become more at- tractive The renewed interest in solar is re flected in a 500 percent increase in grant applications to the state’s $56- million solar rebate program, which received 250 applications in January, according to officials at the Califor nia Energy Commission. The in creased interest has forced Gov. Gray Davis to pledge another $5O million to keep the program from running out of funds. Only 100 Los Angeles residents have received rebates from the De partment of Water and Power’s $BO million solar rebate program, which was launched last year. But in recent months, the number of people who have requested applications has doubled to nearly 1,000 per month. “All this brouhaha about the energy : crisis has made people aware of what their alternatives are,” she added. Solar energy generates a fraction of the 262,000 gigawatt-hours of elec tricity that Californians use each year. Still, the power supplied by solar en ergy has increased gradually, from 810 gigawatt-hours in 1997 to 954 in 1999, according to state figures. A typical 2,000-watt solar energy system can supply a 1,500-square-foot home with up to 60 percent of its power, according to experts. The amount of electricity generated by a solar system depends on the amount ; of sunshine. Still, a 2,000-watt system can cost $ 15,000. A typical state rebate can cut , that cost to $9,000. ' But even then, it can take 15 years : or more of utility bill savings for a so • lar system owner to break even on the ; investment, according to solar panel ! dealers. The payback period could be drinks to childhood obesity and a sharp increase in the incidence of adult-onset diabetes. The U.S. Department of Agricul ture in January issued a stern report to Congress recommending that all snacks sold in schools meet the fed- eral government's nutritional stan dards. “One of the biggest challenges "One of the biggest challenges school meal program managers face is the com petition vvith foods that are marketed to children through multimillion-dollar, glitzy and sophisticated advertising campaigns." -U.S. Dept, of Agriculture report school meal program managers face is the competition with foods that are marketed to children through multi million-dollar, glitzy and sophisti cated advertising campaigns," the re port stated. A Coca-Cola official said the com pany is attempting to address the con cerns of parents and educators. “Companies that have considered schools as a marketing opportunity need to reconsider," said Jeffrey Dunn, president of Coca-Cola North America, a division of Coca-Cola Co., based in Atlanta. "The pendulum has swung too far.’ Dunn added that bottlers are "on **r v, , ARMY ROTC Unlike any college course yoa can take, [;;gC2/3^AiSch^aj:sh|p : applicatQns stil I bete accep|ed:^lV}te^|^® * ii'S* board” with the policy shift. They are independent companies, however, and Bill Marks, a Coca-Cola spokesman, acknowledged that "if this movement doesn’t take off, you might (continue to) see exclusives.” A Pepsi spokesman, Larry Jabbonsky, said his company has taken or is considering some of the same steps. He took exception to crit ics who maintain that the push for exclusivity has come from the cola giants. “It has been a school, a dis- gains than an opportunity to build brand loyalty. School sales accounted for only about 1 percent of Coca-Cola's sales of 5.1 billion cases of beverages in the most recent fiscal year. schools. “It’s a case of'helping out the schools with money that students would already otherwise be spending off campus," said Dick Van Der Laan, a spokesman for Long Beach Unified School District in California. “The schools themselves can offer the healthier alternatives, but the reality is the students do buy junk food and empty calories." slashed dramatically if electricity rates rise - a possibility that is on the minds of many recent solar converts. That was the case with Mark lrw in, a contractor from Agoura Hills, Calit., who de scribed his family of four as energy hogs." They had regu- we " as t 0 save money lariy racked up electricity bills Solar panels, also known as of $l6O per month, he said. solar photovoltaic systems, Like others who have re- use silicon cells installed in cently purchased solar sys- rooftop panels to convert sun tems, Irwin had long consid- light i nto electricity. For that ered making such an invest- reason, experts recommend ment, but he hesitated until the that solar systems be energy crisis struck. mounted on homes with at "I firmly believe our rates l east 300 square feet of un are going to go up," he said. obstructed roof area facing In January, Irwin bought a LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTO BY BORIS YARO south or west. $36,000 solar system that can Mgrk !rwin 0 f Agoura Hills, Calif., near Los Angeles, got solar Most solar electric systems generate a peak output of 4.4 panels for his family of “energy hogs." Fellow contractor George are wired into a home s meter, kilowatts - enough, he said, to Nikolas checks the work. If the panels generate more coye3r your tott, College can mean maneuver!ng through a lot of different things, but tuition payments shouldn’t be one of them, where Army RqiG cp'nes jn. Mere, ybyti;deve^p ; #ihB.th%jast a lifetime. Meet friends you cph count on, Aritf haire a shot at getting a 2- or scholarship; Talk to an Army RQTC ' advisor today, and program. WO'vpjpot you covered,. WORLD & NATION trict or consortiums of districts getting together and dangling exclusivity to generate the most money from a given supplier,” Jabbonsky said. For cola companies, the school contracts represent less a chance for short-term revenue The debate poses a conundrum for Nevada population swells to nearly 2 million by Tom Gorman Los Angeles Times March 13, 2001 LAS VEGAS - Led by a tripling of its Latino residents, the population of Nevada - the nation’s fastest-growing state - has ballooned to nearly 2 million people, a 66.3 percent increase since 1990, according to U.S. Census fig ures released Tuesday. Most of that growth occurred in Clark County, allow ing the Las Vegas region to further manhandle the bal ance of the state on political and financial issues. Clark County, with 1,375,765 residents, now accounts for nearly 69 percent of the state’s total population. The population of the county has eclipsed the rest of the state since 1980, but the trend has continued with the surge of new Las Vegas Strip casinos in the past decade and, in its wake, the resident work force that followed. For all its open spaces, Nevada’s population is heavily concentrated in its urban counties, and that concentration grew in the past decade. About 86 percent of the state’s residents live in either Clark County or Washoe County, around Reno, compared to about 83 percent in 1990. The state’s population has also become more ethnically diverse, a change that has not been lost on Las Vegas’ casino owners, at least one of whom is now marketing specifically to the local Asian population. Among the various ethnic groups, the number of Asians, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Nevada has about tripled, from 35,897 in 1990 to between 96,362 and 122,457 in 2000, about 6 percent of the population. Fig ures on race and ethnicity from the 2000 census are re ported as ranges because, for the first time, people were allowed to report themselves as belonging to more than one group. The state’s Latino population is also up sharply. In 1990, Latinos - with a population of 124,419 - made up 10.4 percent of the state’s residents. By 2000, the number ol slash the energy bills at his 2,400-square-foot home by more than half. With the state rebate, he paid S24,(XX) for [tuition] the system. I But Irwin said the purchase was intended to help save the environment as FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2001 Latinos had roughly tripled, to between 355,452 and 393,970, or 17.8 percent to 19.7 percent of the popula tion. The dramatic increase in the Latino population should put politicians on notice that those voters will need to be reckoned with, elected officials say. Now it is time for them to become politically involved, said Dario Herrera, chairman of the Clark County Board of Commissioners - and one of only three Latino elected officials in southern Nevada. The other two are a school board member and a state legislator. Jeff Hardcastle, the state demographer, said the bur geoning Latino population in southern Nevada is stoked by the availability of jobs in new home construction and service jobs in the hotels and casinos. "That’s the story of Nevada’s growth: job creation,” he said. The question that will be resolved when additional census data are released, he said, is whether the Latinos have moved to Nevada from California or directly from other countries. The census showed that the state’s black population was between 131,-509 and 150,508 - between 6.6 percent and 7.5 percent of the population. Whites numbered be tween 1,303,001 and 1,366,981 - between 65.2 percent and 68.4 percent of the population. Politically, the continued population shift to Clark County will force state legislators to add more seats to represent southern Nevada, giving the county an even stronger voice in politics at the expense of the rest of the state. Nevada also is in store for a third congressional seat, and a piece of that district will probably be in Clark County, which already makes up parts of the other two seats. Las Vegas’ population increased 85 percent to 478,434, from 258,295 just 10 years ago. Reno, the state’s second-largest city, grew by nearly 35 percent to 180,480 residents, and Carson City, the state capital, grew about 30 percent to 52,457. electricity than is being used, such as when no one is home during the day, the solar energy is diverted into the local power grid. When that happens, the home's electric meter runs backward, creating free energy credits that the ho meowner can use later. However, if a home solar system generates more en ergy than that household uses over the course of a year, local utility companies are not obligated by law to buy that excess power from the homeowner. So, it doesn’t make sense for most homes to have systems with more capacity than 5 kilAvatts. For an extra $2,000 or so, solar system dealers offer a set of solar-powered batteries to keep the electricity flow ing in case of blackouts or a disaster-related outage. Oklahoma-based Bergey WindpowerCo., which makes residential wind turbines, sold 40 home units in Califor nia in January, compared with just six in California in all of 2000 and 12 in 1999. “Sales are exploding,” said company President Michael Bergey. “We see this as perhaps the launch of a new age of affordable persona! power generation.” ' .;Kwfi£tr. oiiSm • • - - **+«*■ *.♦<'* "’S«*?£''*"* i tit
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers