Child Center Will Reopen in Echo Park : Day care: Molestation allegations forced the unit’s closure. Preschool program may remain inactive for another year.

An Echo Park child care center, closed last year after two of its employees were accused of child molestation, will reopen this month on a probationary basis, city officials announced Wednesday.

Under an agreement that will be finalized today between the city of Los Angeles and the state Department of Social Services, the Echo Park Recreation Center will resume its after-school program for elementary schoolchildren on Jan. 22, said Jim Hadaway, general manager for the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks. He added, however, that an intensified effort by the city to meet state day-care guidelines may keep the preschool portion of the program inactive for at least another year.

“We don’t want what happened before to happen again. We want to phase this in slowly,” Hadaway said, standing in front of the city-run facility during a news conference attended by Mayor Tom Bradley and other city representatives. “We’ll be working slowly in opening the preschool day-care program.

“It’s almost impossible to run a preschool program in a building that has many other uses with adults and youths,” he later explained. “If we go to a trailer, we could do it, but if we have to completely redo this building I don’t see how that can be done within a year’s time.”

The center, which primarily cared for low-income youngsters, was shut down in November after state regulators cited it for conduct and violations that were “inimical to the health, welfare and safety of the children.”

Several children at the center made molestation allegations against Simon Bermudez, 37, a former recreational aide at Echo Park, and Charles Chavez, 33, who once drove a van for the center. Chavez, in jail, faces trial on seven felony counts of performing lewd acts upon children under 14. A bench warrant has been issued for Bermudez, who faces seven related misdemeanor charges.

A controversy erupted when it was discovered that neither man had been fingerprinted as required by state law for all employees working in day care. Police contended that a thorough check of Chavez’s background would have shown he had a criminal record involving lewd behavior with a prostitute.

Under the agreement worked out to reopen the center, Echo Park will be allowed to operate its child care center with a two-year probationary license, Deputy City Atty. Terry Martin Brown said.

As part of the agreement, the transporting of children to their homes is prohibited; an outdoor space policy will be implemented to separate those in child care from others using the playground, and all recreation center employees are to be fingerprinted.

Hadaway said his department has now fingerprinted about 1,000 of about 1,500 part-time recreation center employees--even those who do not work in day care.

Michelle Stover, chairwoman of the Echo Park Parent’s advisory board, said she was pleased to see the after-school program resume, and added that most of the parents were not afraid to send their children back to the center.

“The parents are more aware, the teachers are more aware,” said Stover, whose 9-year-old son was in Echo Park’s after-school program. “We’ll just have to work together to make sure it will work. I think it will be a much better program.”

However, with the preschool program on hold, Stover said, “it feels like only half the battle was won.”