Oceanside OKs ‘Emergency’ Child Care at Work

City employees facing “an emergency situation” may bring their children to work under an unusual and controversial policy adopted Wednesday by the City Council.

The policy, initially drafted by an employees’ task force and fine-tuned by a council committee over the summer, permits children to accompany their parents on the job on a temporary basis when it is deemed “mutually beneficial” for Oceanside and the worker.

An employee’s supervisor would consult a list of guidelines in evaluating a request to bring a child to work in certain emergencies, such as illness, school holidays, sudden adoption or the sickness of a baby sitter.

A supervisor would consider, for example, whether the employee might use sick leave or vacation time to stay home with the child; whether the employee had exhausted all alternative child care options; whether the nature of the employee’s work is vital enough to warrant his or her attendance with a child, and whether the child is healthy or might affect the health of others in the workplace.

Oceanside’s policy, which stirred a flurry of controversy when it was first proposed, may be the first of its kind in San Diego County, Assistant City Manager Bill Workman said. A survey of the county’s largest cities--San Diego, Escondido, El Cajon, Chula Vista, Carlsbad and National City--appeared to confirm his view.

Officials in these communities said that no such policy exists in their cities and that the issue of children in the workplace had never come up. Many added, however, that in certain instances, depending on the mood of the boss, children had been permitted on the job for brief periods--after school or before a doctor’s appointment, for example.

“If there is some special circumstance, then I’d say it’s left to the supervisor’s discretion to be flexible about it,” said Jane Paradowski, Escondido’s manager of human resources. “But it’s on a case-by-case basis and it only goes so far. If you’re in the automotive department, for example, you’re probably out of luck.”

Officials in most San Diego County cities generally frowned on Oceanside’s policy, saying that children would be disruptive in the workplace and would create an unprofessional atmosphere.

The lone Oceanside councilman to vote against the policy was Sam Williamson, a father of three who said that “kids belong in the home, not the workplace” and expressed concerns about Oceanside’s liability should a child be injured while at City Hall.

“I think children are distracting, very distracting,” Williamson said after the vote. “You can’t make them sit still like animals. Youngsters like to move around, and if they’re moving around they’re taking employees’ attention off their work.”

Williamson also called the policy unfair. Although secretaries and other clerical workers might manage to perform their tasks while looking after a child, he said, balancing workload and parenting would be virtually impossible for firefighters and maintenance workers.

“What’s the field worker going to do, put the kid up on the backhoe?” asked Williamson, who vowed to challenge the policy again should it create problems. “This just isn’t a fair situation for all employees. I don’t like it at all.”

But Williamson’s colleagues, disagreeing, urged him to be more progressive. Councilman Walter Gilbert, noting that “most of us have raised families ourselves,” spoke of the growing demand for child care and advised the council not to “forget this is a part of life that we need to be responsive to.”

In addition, Gilbert suggested that Oceanside officials consider including a city-sponsored child care center in planning its new downtown civic center.

“I understand the business community . . . has day care to attract employees and enhance their working environment,” Gilbert said. “I’m concerned that this city treat our employees just as well as the business community treats theirs.”

The debate over children in the workplace surfaced in January when Williamson and several residents criticized Oceanside City Manager Suzanne Foucault for bringing her newly adopted infant to the office two days a week. Foucault and her husband, Del Mar City Manager Bob Nelson, were given only 10 days’ notice before they received their daughter, and they had trouble lining up a baby sitter.

Although no one in Del Mar, where the baby spent the three other weekdays, seemed to mind the infant’s presence, she caused quite a stir in Oceanside. After a tumultuous public hearing, during which some residents literally challenged Foucault’s qualifications for motherhood, the council gave the city manager a month to arrange child care. Council members also directed the city staff to prepare an ordinance clarifying their position on the issue.