Journalism graduate student Emily Frost

LA Weekly published a story by second-year journalism master's student Emily Frost about the city of Mar Vista adopting solar power. The story was based on Frost's reporting from Gabriel Kahn's Journalism 599: "Follow the Money: The Art and Craft of Business and Economics" class. As Frost relays it, two Mar Vista men had a mission to get their neighbors to adopt solar power as their energy source, but the pair ran into the issue of cost. Because people did not want to make a big investment, the men looked into leasing solar panels, which is much cheaper. Companies who lease the solar panels usually get a government rebate, but the city's utility would not offer rebates. After working with City Hall, eventually rebates for solar leasing became an available. "They formed the for-profit Open Neighborhoods firm and organized about 30 Mar Vista homeowners into a collective to begin negotiating with different solar companies," Frost wrote. "They got the best bid from SolarCity, a California firm with more than 15,000 customers. Thirty households signed on with Open Neighborhoods." The duo has expanded its efforts and now homeowners can pay $69 a month for solar energy, and demand is growing. Read the article here.