Soldier in ‘Child-Care Wars’ to Battle Problem in New City Post

As a mother, Patricia Lane has already been through “the child-care wars,” searching for day-care center openings for her now 3-year-old son, Patrick.

As the City of Los Angeles’ first child-care coordinator, Lane is back on the child-care battlefield, but this time with a political base in City Hall.

The 37-year-old former administrator for the Volunteers of America took the $40,000-a-year post a week ago, with a mandate, she said, to help ease a local child-care shortage estimated at “265,000 to 275,000 spaces.”

“Essentially, the purpose is to coordinate activities relating to child care, working to increase quality, affordable, accessible child care,” Lane said.

According to a report submitted to the City Council this year, there are 1.5 million children in the city, of whom an estimated 400,000 need child care. Child care was listed as the fourth-largest budget expense for families after shelter, food and taxes.

The selection of Lane was the first step in the city’s implemention of a child-care policy passed by the council last February, a move undertaken by only a few dozen other cities in the country.

The appointment is viewed as an important step by child-care proponents who have worked locally on the issue for more than two years.

“Without a staff person to implement, policies don’t get carried out,” said Susan Rose, director of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women. “They sit on the shelf.”

The child-care policy orders the city to include child-care needs in the planning process, use vacant or under-utilized city properties for such care when possible, give preferred treatment to city contractors with child-care policies and expedite approvals and permits for those wanting to establish or expand child-care programs.

“I want this child-care coordinator to teach planning and zoning and building and safety officials how they can deal with those who want to establish child-care centers,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus, who led the effort to get the policy passed.

“The fact that people have one central place to come now is important,” said Ara Parker, head of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Child Care. “There’s now a focal point.”

Selected from among 31 candidates, some from as far away as Texas and Maine, Lane does not seem to be well-known in the child-care field. During her 10 years with the Volunteers of America, she administered a variety of family related programs, she said. Although a child-care center was among them, she did not personally run it.

A Pasadena resident with a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master’s in social welfare administration from UCLA, Lane has also worked in mental health and welfare services for Santa Barbara County.

Stan Gronos, chief personnel analyst with the city Personnel Department, who was part of a four-member panel that interviewed the applicants and selected Lane, said she was chosen for her “overall background, manner of presentation and experience.”

People holding the post in other cities say much of the job involves being what one called a “traffic officer” between developers who might build or provide space, child-care providers and city officials.

Some say the job’s greatest value is the message it sends to the community about a long-ignored issue.

“It’s a statement that the city is addressing a social and economic need,” said Angela Chester-Johnson, who was appointed Oakland’s first child-care coordinator in April, 1986. Since then, the city has established a public-private consortium to raise and distribute funds for child-care services.

In Irvine, Nancy Noble, who established the post of child-care coordinator three years ago, said there have been close to a dozen new or expanded child-care facilities opened or planned.

In San Francisco, Moira So, director of the mayor’s Office of Community Development, said six projects are in the planning stages. An Office of Child Care was set up three years ago, followed by a 1985 ordinance requiring developer contributions, either in space or money, to child-care facilities.

A similar measure failed in Los Angeles after being proposed in 1986 by former Councilman David Cunningham.