City Day Care for Carson’s Latchkey Kids Will Resume : Services: The council votes to reopen the popular Kids Club program at city parks. Parents were upset when the program was closed in November.

When Carson closed its popular Kids Club latchkey program in November, it was a calamity for the parents of the 280 children in the after-school program.

Scores of parents had relied on the city-subsidized day-care centers to supervise their school-age youngsters while they worked full time.

These parents led an eight-month drive to reopen Kids Club. Success came Tuesday, when the City Council voted 3 to 0 to restart the program and apply for state licensing.

The program was shut down after an anonymous phone caller told state child care officials that the city Parks and Recreation Department was operating the program without a state license.

City officials, accused of closing Kids Club too hastily, waited to reopen the centers because it was unclear whether parks and recreation staff could be licensed to run them, they said. In addition, the city budget crisis made it difficult for the city to continue subsidizing the program.

In reviving the citywide program, the council voted to raise fees to $32 a week--they used to be $22--to make Kids Club self-supporting. Eric Forsberg, an assistant parks and recreation director, said Kids Club is expected to reopen at eight city parks by the time Los Angeles Unified schools in Carson are back in session in mid-August.

State Social Services Department officials recently told the city that Kids Club can reopen while its license application is being processed, Forsberg said.

The reopening of the latchkey centers ends a heated chapter in City Hall-community relations.

When the city closed the Kids Club program in November, it kept open Tiny Tots, a similar day-care program for preschoolers ages 3 to 5. Tiny Tots, run by the city’s Community Services Division, also was found to be operating in violation of state licensing regulations.

City officials said they kept Tiny Tots open because its better-trained staff was more likely to be licensed. Officials also said the city feared being sued if a child was hurt at an unlicensed Kids Club center, but did not explain why that would be less of a problem for Tiny Tots.

The disparate treatment for similar programs angered parents of school-age children. Some speculated that the city staff misinformed the council. Others said the staff and the council opposed Kids Club because it was run by the Parks and Recreation Department, whose supporters include many vocal critics of city government.

Several parents said this week that Tiny Tots was favored because many City Hall employees used the program for their own children.

Mayor Michael I. Mitoma agreed in part with the parents, saying this week that the city acted hastily in closing Kids Club “because of staff misinformation.”

City Administrator Larry Olson, however, denied this.

Olson said there have been misunderstandings between state officials and city staff members but that he “did not see any faulty information” in any staff memos about the programs.

Before its closure, Kids Club provided before- and after-school supervision to about 280 school-age youths at each of the city’s 12 parks. Three parks--Calas, Mills and Carriage Crest--are unlikely to meet state licensing requirements because each has only one restroom, city officials said. A fourth, Dominguez Park, should meet the requirements after its $1.5-million renovation is completed next year.

Tina Hemming-Rivera, who works full time, as does her husband, said she will enroll her 6-year-old daughter, Amanda, and 5-year-old son, Stephan, in the program when it reopens.

Even with a higher fee, she said, Kids Club is more economical than putting her children in private care. In addition, she said, the program offers a variety of recreation programs for her child.

“My daughter loves it,” Hemming-Rivera said. “She gets a lot of quality care. It’s at the park, where they have access to grass fields. I think each city should have this kind of program.”

Gail Konig, who had two children in Kids Club two years ago, agreed. She has been taking care of Hemming-Rivera’s daughter since the city shut down the program. Konig was also part of a city task force formed last year to look at reopening the program.

“I really hope it becomes a model for other communities,” Konig said, adding that the program is particularly needed by latchkey children.

Forsberg said a February mail survey of Kids Club participants showed that of the 176 who responded, 126 indicated that their family “was in a latchkey situation where there was no one to go home to after school.”

Mitoma said Kids Club is “probably one of the programs the city needs the most.”