City Funding of Preschool Is Eliminated : Day care: Angry parents fail to dissuade budget-conscious council from ending support of the Mini Center.

Despite angry parents shouting, “Recall!” and others chanting “We want the center!” the City Council has stood firm on its decision to end funding for an 18-year-old, city-operated child-care center.

“You just don’t understand,” Councilman Albert G. Perez told an outraged crowd of about 100 people who attended a special session on the issue Wednesday night. “We are in a very, very bad budget situation. Tomorrow, we will have the senior citizens (protesting). The day after, it will be the Boys’ Club. The day after, the street sweepers. The day after, the city employees.”

The meeting was called by Mayor Art Olmos after the council voted 3 to 2 on Sept. 1 to end support for the Mini Center, which is situated at 1824 Central Ave. It provides preschool and after-school care for 123 children.

Instead, Options, a private day-care firm in Alhambra, will secure its own funding to operate a city site. The city will provide free maintenance of the building.

Funds for the Mini Center were eliminated to help offset a $900,000 deficit in the city’s proposed $6.7-million operations budget. Council members Vera Valdiviez and Raul Pardo opposed the cut, arguing that it saved the city only $7,000.

But other council members countered that the center shaved costs this year by getting a one-time-only allotment of $40,000 from federal community development block grant funds. In years past, the city has paid as much as $100,000 annually to support the center, which also charges parents fees to help meet costs.

Those arguments were hotly renewed Wednesday, as well as accusations that Options would be ineligible to run a day-care center because of opposition from Los Angeles County.

Frank Lorah, an official with the county office of education, said the county was prepared this year to give a $215,000 state grant to the Mini Center for a preschool program and would file a grievance with the state against Options if the city switches operators.

Lorah explained that the county contract was made specifically with the city-run center. If the contract were to be switched to another operator, the county would want to examine other providers in addition to Options, he said.

The county also would file a federal grievance against Options if the company puts a federal Head Start program at the center, Lorah said, because the federal government designates specific territories for agencies and South El Monte is not within Options’ territory.

Options Executive Director Cliff Marcussen accused Lorah of making a “false argument,” because his firm does not intend to put a Head Start program in South El Monte. And he said that the city has the right to choose its own child-care operator. The Mini Center, with a staff of five, is expected to close within two weeks.

“They poured their hearts into this center,” center director Debby Kelly said of the employees. “They are people who came early and stayed late.”

Until government funding is sorted out for the transfer to Options, no one knows how many parents will use the city-owned site, Kelly said, adding that “some displacement is expected.”

For parents, the bottom line was not the bureaucratic hassling, but their personal concerns.

“I’m a single parent. I was going to put my 4-year-old son at the Mini Center so I can go out and work to support him,” said Carlos Torres, who jumped to the microphone and shouted above Olmos’ pounding gavel. “Where am I going to put him now?”

Torres was uncertain about putting his son in the Options program. After the meeting, some parents said they will not place their children in Options because they believe the firm offers a lower quality of care.

For Sylvia Ramirez Moreno, however, the concern is money. Because Options’ program is geared to low-income parents, Moreno, a middle-income wage earner, would face a tripling of her current $85 monthly fee.

“It’s a dramatic increase,” she said. “I’ll definitely look around for something else.”