April 26, 2006 - Top Stories
McDonald’s does it. Coca-Cola does it. Pepsi does it. Pizza Hut does it. They all target children.
Marketing and advertising play a significant role in setting standards and behaviors, particularly in the young. Now, more than ever, children are bombarded with advertising that promote unhealthy foods and beverages.
According to the Public Health Institute (PHI), there is evidence that this type of food and beverage marketing influences eating and drinking habits.
Childhood obesity rates are on the rise. Shouldn’t schools be helping young people make healthy decisions? In a perfect world they should. In a perfect world there is no gap in funding. In a perfect world there are no cash-strapped schools that gladly take money from junk-food peddlers to make up for chronic funding shortages.
But this is not a perfect world.
These companies know that. They also know that they have tapped into an audience that is particularly vulnerable to messages of the food and beverage industry. Children spend most of their time at school, so why not plaster it with banners and images?
A study conducted by the PHI found that 276 vending machines were found in 19 of the 20 California public schools assessed. It found 245 instances of food and beverage related posters or signage. Sixty percent of those were for foods and beverages that are high in fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, and sodium and are low in nutrients.
Nine schools had athletic events that were supported in part by food or beverage companies.
What you don’t find, or at least in rare instances, is marketing for fruits and vegetables, whole grains, water and milk.
Obesity rates among children and adolescents ages six to 19 have tripled over the past 40 years. This has increased the risks of Type Two diabetes and cardiovascular problems for them.
One program that addresses the problem is California Project LEAN (Leaders Encouraging Activity and Nutrition). LEAN is working with 30 school districts in California to establish policies that support healthy eating and physical activity.
“We do not have a board policy about advertising but to date we have not allowed any advertising of any food items at the schools,” said VCPUSD School District Assistant Supt. Sarah Clayton regarding the districts lack of advertisements. “We are committed to providing healthy meals, consistent physical education and encouraging healthy lifestyles.”
Rosemary Geiger, Director of Child Nutrition Services for VCPUSD, is doing her part to make sure the kids in Valley Center and the surrounding areas get their share of healthy foods.
“It is known that if kids eat healthy and the correct amount for breakfast and lunch along with water and activity, they will maintain levels for healthy learning,” said Geiger. “Kids that don’t eat [or don’t eat healthy] don’t learn.”
When planning the menu for ten schools, she meets all the regulations and guidelines set by the state government. Because of that, the school gets reimbursements. Geiger believes it is the school’s responsibility to provide nutritious meals.
Shouldn’t that be the parent’s job? Now we depend on our schools to provide supervision and life lessons on acceptable behavior in and out of the classroom AND dietary guidelines.
“We are supposed to be setting an example here,” said Geiger. “If the kids can eat healthy for breakfast and lunch, then if they go home and their parents give them pizza [for dinner] we have helped some. We all know the pace people are living at right now. Everyone is on the go and stopping at fast food places. We are all guilty of it.”
Aside from regulating calories, fats and sugars, Geiger took sodas out of the vending machines and replaced them with energy drinks and water. She also gave permission for a snack cart at the upper elementary school stocked with low-fat cookies, fruit smoothies and other healthier items.
This year she focused on classroom parties and made suggestions to parents and teachers about alternatives to the traditional pizza and ice cream parties.
“We are getting better,” said Geiger. “It just takes time. In Valley Center there aren’t as many places to go. I know our obesity rate is on the rise but if you look at Valley Center students, I think our percentages are lower because the kids have chores to do and are on several acres of property.”
Geiger also recommends nutritional education, like Nutrition Bingo. She rewards students well versed in nutrition with nonfood prizes like pencils and masks.
Geiger has also gone after the teachers.
“My theory is: how can you say to a kid, “’You can’t drink a Coke’” and then teachers walk in drinking a Coke and eating potato chips for breakfast,” said Geiger. “That is giving mixed messages. We can’t tell our teachers what to do but I’ve tried to provide healthier breakfast and lunch options available to the teachers, like an eight-item salad bar.”
On July 1, the district will have a new wellness policy. California law will require that school districts create nutrition guidelines for all food sold on campus, create goals for nutrition education and physical activity, create a plan for ensuring the policy is implemented and will include parents, students, school food service staff, school administrators, school board members and the public.
Geiger thinks people are very informed about the rise in obesity. “We are going to have very unhealthy kids if we don’t change the way they eat. Everything is gradual and you can’t do it overnight but it’s our job to offer it to them and explain why and give them lots of choices,” she said.
Be cooperative, but not chummy with developers. That’s one way to read the newly adopted debt policy at the VC Municipal Water District.
“I think our role is not to support or encourage developers. It is to facilitate developments that are approved and not assist in planning future developments,” commented water board director Merle Aleshire in voting for a staff recommendation for a district debt policy at the April 17 meeting.
The board adopted two distinct policies. The first applies to all debt, whereas the second applies only to assessment districts that may be requested by developers for water and wastewater (sewer) projects.
Sect. 50.3, which applies to all debt, says, for instance, that debt will only be used to pay for capital improvements, not for growth or for recurring operating costs.
However, the second section, 50.4 Land-Secured Financing Policy, is what some developers are questioning.
Several developers, including MSK Development, Herb Schaffer and D.L. Horton, asked the water board to delay adopting the policy for a few weeks to give them a chance to study it and make a presentation to the board.
Joe A. Gallagher of Live Oak Ranch, LLC, put it in writing: “The proposed change in policy by the Valley Center Municipal Water District relating to the formation of the 1915 Assessment Districts is both significant and complicated. The land owners and developers who signed this letter are formally requesting that staff provide additional time for comment and review of the proposed policy.”
But the board wasn’t having any of it.
Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant commented, “The water board’s agendas are readily available to these developers and these items have been on the agendas for a couple of months.” This was the second reading of the policy.
The new policy can be seen as adopting a neutral stance towards new development, rather than doing anything to aid it.
It won’t help a developer bootstrap water or sewer facilities when it doesn’t already have financing lined up. The policy requires that a developer be able to finance at least 25% of a facility’s estimated cost. The district will finance the remainder.
“While the policy does facilitate the development process to some degree, it doesn't allow a developer to use the District's financial resources to make what might be a marginal project viable,” Arant told The Roadrunner.
The developers in contact with the district would have preferred a policy “that would essentially make the District a partner in the development, rather than just a service provider,” he said.
Arant told the board “As far as staff is concerned, this policy benefits developers,” but added, “Although you’ll probably hear from developers that we should finance one hundred percent of the facilities.”
The new policy states that the district will also only issue debt to pay for the facility after it has been constructed.
The district will only participate in funding mechanisms for water or sewer facilities. It won’t participate in funding for other facilities such as roads or parks.
It will only participate in more conservative “1913” or “1915”-type assessment districts. It will not participate in Community Facilities (Mello Roos) Districts.
“The development community would like us to use Community Facilities District financing, finance all improvements (water, sewer, streets, street lights, storm drains)and their capacity fees, finance 100% of the value, and do the financing up front so that they could use the bond financing proceeds to build the facilities, rather than have to find a construction loan,” Arant told The Roadrunner.
Another part of the policy that developers had opposed is the district requirement of a “no surprises clause.” It requires full and prominent disclosure to the potential buyers of the property of the existence of the assessment debt.
Arant explained to The Roadrunner that the district wants to avoid a situation where home buyers discover later on that they may have a very large property tax bill because of fees associated with a water or wastewater facility.
“We don’t want our board room filled with irate customers complaining about something which may have not been that prominently disclosed,” he said.
The water district will require that any fees of this nature be included on signs used to advertise the developments, he said.
Joyce Johnson, who has been general manager of the VC Parks & Rec. District since February of 1994 will be retiring by the end of this June.
Currently the district is looking for a replacement. The board was informed of her leaving the post around the first of the year.
At Thursday night’s board of directors meeting the board will hold an executive session where undoubtedly one of the subjects will be to find a successor to Mrs. Johnson.
On public portion of the meeting the board will get an update on refurbishing of the restroom at Adams Park, the upcoming Arts & Music Festival in May and a Rotary painting project of VC Community Hall.
The public is invited to the meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. upstairs in the hall. Eric Jockinsen is president.
The VC Fire Protection District Thursday narrowed the field from four to two in its search for a firm to conduct a special election, possibly in November, to raise fees that the district collects from property owners.
The companies are:
Bureau Veritas Company, Management & Finance Division, 11590 West Bernardo Court, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92127-1624.
SCI Consulting Group, 2300 Boynton Avenue, Suite 201, Fairfield, CA 94533.
Four companies answered the district’s request for proposal, but, according to directors Dan Thornton and Weaver Simonsen, two did not meet the requirements put forth in the RFP nor address the points in the RFP.
Interviews will be conducted this week, Thornton said. The board may go into a special session to approve one of them to put together an election proposal for the district.
The district’s funding situation is worsening by the year, directors agree.
Simonsen pointed out at Thursday’s meeting that while benefit fees grow at a rate of 3% a year, that costs to run the district are rising at the rate of 7.5%.
“Benefit fees will never keep up with actual inflation,” noted director Mel Schuler.
The original benefit fees passed by the voters who created the district 20 years ago are tied to the Consumer Price Index. However, expenses have climbed faster than that over the years.
The additional money that voters authorized two years ago when they approved a Mello Roos district increases at an annual rate of 2%.
Directors are looking at a funding mechanism that can be structured to increase at a more realistic rate.
The rate they are looking at would be capped at 7%.
Simonsen commented, “For those who believe that growth is something that solves our problems, we are adding on average two hundred new homes a year. Those homes will bring in $32,000. That doesn’t even pay for half of the reserves in this organization. So, growth is not solving our problems either. In fact, it puts more pressure on us to provide more staff and services.”
That new growth covers one half of one employee. A full time employee at the district gets $64,000. Since the fire department is a 24-hour operation, it has three shifts, seven days a week, added Thornton.
Much, if not all, of the district’s financial problems can be traced to the fact that it was created after Prop. 13. That means it can draw on very limited property taxes.
Valley Center Fire Protection District collects $300,000 in property taxes. If it had incorporated before Prop. 13 it would today be collecting from $7-8 million.
An example of such a pre-Prop. 13 district is Fallbrook’s, named the North County Fire Protection District.
“Having that kind of money would make a major difference in the speed in which we open new stations, and expand coverage. Our hands are tied by the limits in our funding,” said Simonsen.
New Administrator
The board welcomed the new district administrator, Steve Mahady, who began his duties last month.
Meritorious Service
Chief Kevin O’Leary presented the newly established VCFPD Meritorious Service Awards to several firefighters and contractors who performed heroically at the Paradise Fire of October, 2003.
They included Jim Corona, Sr.; Jim Corona, Jr., Ray Vargas and Garrett Newman.
“As we move through the years since that fire we find that a lot more happened with individuals that we weren’t aware of,” commented the chief.
A Valley Center family living on Rick’s Ranch Road lost their 60 pound basset hound, a family pet, to what may have been a mountain lion or pack of coyotes recently.
The incident happened April 10 about 6:30 p.m. on the property of Robert Woolley, who owns ten acres of grapefruit trees overlooking Keys Creek.
Near sundown Woolley, who has two springer spaniels in addition to the basset hound, heard the dogs raise a furious barking. “So I went to see what was going on. They were going nuts.”
The basset hound, which they would let roam the property during daylight, was missing. Woolley saw that the weeds going down the hill near their house were mashed. He heard a muffled bark.
When he got back to his house the basset had come back “and she was torn to pieces. One of her back legs was ripped and part of the flesh had been eaten.”
He took the ten-year-old hound to the emergency veterinary clinic in Escondido where a surgeon spent five hours stitching her up. She later died from the trauma.
There was some disagreement over what animal might have caused such grievous wounds in such a large dog.
The vet, said Woolley, thought it was a mountain lion. Agents from U.S. Fish & Wildlife, according to Woolley, came out and looked around and didn’t come back. They thought the injuries might not have been caused by a big cat.
California Wildlife Services came out and promised to set some traps for whatever it was.
“She weighed 60 pounds, so I don’t think a coyote,” said Woolley. There’s definitely a bunch of coyotes, so it’s possible, but whatever it was tried to get into the dog pen a week later and get at the other two dogs.”The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
Copyright © 2006, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.