Aug 30, 2008

Center has had 'many twists and turns'

Mountain View's new child care center inaugurated

By Jessie Mangaliman / Bay Area News Group

It took a few speeches and the snip of a giant ceremonial pair of scissors to inaugurate Mountain View's new child care center during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday afternoon.

But the road to that official gathering took more than a decade of planning, a task force study, more planning and two city councils.

Kevin Woodhouse, who was a 31-year-old senior analyst for the city when the project began, married without children. Today, he has two boys, 6 and 8, and his knowledge of early childhood development, by his own description, was deepened by what he learned as the city's official representative to a community task force studying the need for affordable child care in Mountain View.

Thursday, he joined Mayor Tom Means, community leaders, government officials and families to help dedicate the new 7,200-square-foot center, which will serve more than 100 children, infants to 5 years old. About one-third will be children from low-income families who will be subsidized by the city. The new one-story center on Escuela Avenue has a large playground and a public art gate, "Bug Buddies," by artist Robert Ellison, which leads to Rengstorff Park. The center will be operated by the Children's Creative Learning Center, a well-known child care provider.

"It's very satisfying to see a project this complex come to fruition," Woodhouse said. "No one, including the task force, knew what the outcome would be. It took many twists and turns."

Tom Myers, executive director of Community Services Agency, a local nonprofit social service agency for low-income families and the homeless, said the new center "will be an incredibly welcome part of the community."

"We feel fortunate to be sending our child here," said Fernando Vargas, whose daughter Chelsea, 2, was playing in the community resource room Thursday.

Vargas, 39, who has a small janitorial business with his wife, said it is impossible to find affordable child care. He and his wife, Bertha, took turns baby-sitting their daughter.

"This place is beautiful," he said, standing in the playground.

The first discussions began in 1997 when city officials and some community leaders raised the issue of child care access for underserved families.

While teaching English to immigrants, Jeanne Richter said she saw first hand the need for child care among working families. Working parents would bring their young children while taking English classes. The Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education center had a waiting list of 100 families who needed child care.

"We didn't have enough space," she said. "That's what inspired my interest. It became really important to me."

A community study confirmed what Richter saw while teaching, and she led the task force that began looking for an answer.

"I'm thrilled, and I applaud the city for sticking with it," said Richter, who is now retired. "I had not worked with government per se, and I didn't have any expectation that it would take this long."

From the beginning, the city was involved. It offered land for the new center. With a $2.5 million low-interest loan from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, the city built the center on park land behind the city's senior center.

"It took a while for the city to figure out how to make it work financially," said Nadine Levine, assistant city manager who saw the project from beginning to end.

"It's wonderful finally to see it," she said, "to see it physically."