Editorial: Still time for agreement saving Ross Valley children’s center
For more than 50 years, the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center has provided affordable child care for Ross Valley families.
Its fate is in the hands of the Ross Valley School District Board, the center’s leadership and community leaders.
The dilemma hit a crisis point when the school district concluded that the center’s district-owned Deer Park campus is structurally unsafe and beyond the district’s budget to repair.
That assessment and the district’s attorney’s advice that the center be closed hasn’t given the school board much legal wiggleroom. The school board is worried about safety and liability.
Last week, after months of studies, meetings, negotiations and six hours of public comment, it followed its attorney’s advice to initiate the process to evict the center.
On the table is a $1.6 million offer from the center, backed by a newly formed community consortium. But the district’s attorney,Terry Tao, advised that backup documentation and guarantees are needed, even though the district already had previously requested them.
Impending eviction should escalate efforts to bring all sides together to find a financial and legal common ground.
There is no place for the center and its 100-plus children to move to. There are no other locations available or suitable. The center’s attorney, Michael Calabrese, isn’t ruling out the center’s acquisition of Deer Park.
The road to this point, however, has not always been smooth. There’s been political sniping by both sides.
Attorneys working with the consortium need to clearly address the school board’s concern about its liability. They also need toclearly address the district’s terms and conditions.
Both sides need to be open, clear and reasonable.
Importantly, poised to help fund acquisition are the Marin Community Foundation, the county and other sources.
The center pledged to make needed repairs that would be required for permitting.
According to the center, inspectors have not questioned the overall safety of the buildings, even though there are needed repairs.
County Supervisor Katie Rice has been involved, stressing there is a countywide need for child care, especially subsidized childcare.
“The center closing will mean not only hardship for the families currently being served, but an enormous, irreparable loss to the Ross Valley community and county at large,” Rice said.
For more than five decades, the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center has provided quality, reliable, safe child care for RossValley, not only for local households, but also for the children of local workers.
The center’s affordable child care enables those who commute into the area to hold down jobs in Ross Valley.
Quality child care has proven to benefit academic achievement and healthful socialization, as well as emotional growth.
For 50 years, the center has fulfilled that role. Many of the children are from minority households and the center plays animportant role in closing educational equity gaps.
That history and the need for these services are reasons why organizations and volunteers have stepped forward to help it acquirethe property.
There is still time. It appears there is still will. It may take an emergency helping of legal expertise to satisfy the concerns of the school board and its lawyer, but where there is a will, there is a way.
There is time to come up with a legal basis for the district accepting the center’s bid.
In determining value, the district also needs to consider its loss of rental revenue, ongoing costs and liability if the property is vacated.
The important community benefit of the center to the lives of children and their families is significant and should be a factor in theultimate value.
Fairfax Councilmember Stephanie Hellman, who has been retained as a consultant, says the center and its supporters want tocontinue negotiations.
“We’re ready, willing and able to mediate this,” she said.
