All Systems Go on Day-Care Policy : Issue Heads to Council Instead of Lingering in Committee

The City Council Rules Committee, in a victory for the forces working to establish more day-care centers in San Diego, unanimously voted Monday to establish a comprehensive policy for improving child care citywide.

The decision overrode a recommendation from the city manager’s office that the action be delayed until the end of the year, pending completion of a report on social service needs from the City-County Task Force on Human Care Needs.

At the same time, the committee also voted to investigate the possibility of placing a day-care facility for city employees in Balboa Park, to work with school districts to increase the number of elementary schools offering after-school programs for latchkey children, and to determine if the city should hire a full-time child-care coordinator. The full council is expected to discuss the day-care issue early next month.

“For 10 years, we have known of the necessity of the council establishing a policy on child care,” said Councilwoman Gloria McColl, the council’s leading proponent for improving day-care facilities. “I disagree with the fact that we should wait. I see this as an economic need, not a social service. Let’s move this on to the council now, so we can get this going in the right direction.”

“The city has to get on the ball and start providing these things,” said Councilman Bill Mitchell. Councilman Mike Gotch said it was time for the city to “get moving in a much faster way on this. The need to fast-track this issue is there.”

Acting City Manager John Lockwood noted in his report to the committee that “the city has had a long-term interest in the provision of child day-care services,” first identified in 1975 in an assessment of the city’s unmet social service needs. That study, and three subsequent city studies on the lack of day-care centers, also showed a need for a facility to serve city workers in the downtown area, but numerous searches for a building to house such a center have proved fruitless.

“Four concurrent surveys of city-owned sites and contacts with more than 60 downtown business firms, organizations and agencies have failed to identify a suitable facility,” Lockwood said.

Nevertheless, Lockwood said that to establish a city policy on day-care before the city-county task force completes its work would be premature. “Statistical evidence of an increasing need for child-care services has been well-documented,” Lockwood said. “It is apparent, however, that if the problem is to be significantly alleviated, parents and other child-care proponents will need the full support of the City Council.

“Although the adoption of a child-care policy would attest to the council’s support,” Lockwood said, “it is believed that the adoption of a long-term policy at this time would be premature.”

The high price of land downtown, and state licensing requirements that day-care centers provide 75 square feet of ground-level, outdoor play space for each child enrolled, have frustrated efforts to open a facility for city employees and other downtown workers. The problem, Lockwood said, “has defied (the) staff’s efforts for the past 10 years.”

Now, day-care advocates are eyeing land in Balboa Park that will be vacated in 1988 when the Navy hospital closes. The full council will decide the fate of that valuable land.