ANAHEIM : Day-Care Operators Assail New Proposal

Citing a lack of customers, operators of small, private day-care centers said Monday that they fear an ambitious plan to provide additional child care in the city will force them out of business.

The Anaheim Family Care Plan, adopted last week by a consortium of city, business and school district officials, would provide up to 80 spaces at a renovated train station and up to 125 spaces in a new building by 1991.

“It scares us,” said Grace Romo, owner of Happy Days and La Palma Preschools in the city.

Although licensed for 75 children ages 2 to 6, the Happy Days school has enrolled only 20 children, Romo said.

“We are empty. It’s true of everybody around here,” she said. “If they build these new schools and they’ll be open in 1991, we will be out of business.”

About a dozen day-care and preschool owners in the area are scheduled to attend a meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday at Romo’s center to talk over the problem.

Romo said city researchers were misinformed about the need for day care in Anaheim. “Where are they getting their information for slots they can’t find?” Romo asked.

Steven Swaim, Anaheim’s director of community services, said a city study last year showed that child care was among the top concerns of residents. Using raw census data, a consultant projected that there will be between 15,474 and 24,000 children up to age 4 in the city by the year 2000, he said. There are now 16,000 children in this age group.

Based on those figures and on testimony given at four public forums, Swaim said consortium members figured that there was at least a “potential need” for child care in the city.

Janet Calderon, director of Li’l Toots Preschool in Anaheim, said she also saw a need for after-school care but noted that “we’ve always had too many schools in Anaheim.

“If anything, the money should go to supplying child care for those children who can’t afford it,” Calderon said, “certainly not building two huge schools like that. “

She said she has 35 children enrolled and is licensed for 44. She charges $59 a week for up to 10 hours a day with lunch.

Romo said she charges $68 for a 40-hour week with a hot lunch at Happy Days and La Palma Preschool.