OXNARD : Crime-Plagued Colonia Park Day-Care Center Reopens

When burglars first broke into the day-care center in Colonia Park last October they took a birthday cake and a telephone.

They came back seven times in three months, taking the television, the vacuum cleaner, a copy machine and a microwave oven. More than $10,000 worth of damage later, the center shut down, displacing 55 preschoolers.

This week, with the help of new outdoor lighting, beefed-up evening security patrols and a donated burglar alarm, the Green Valley Child Development Center reopened.

“We’re really glad to be back,” said center director Rosalie Rico. “Something like this is difficult for everyone, especially here (in the Colonia area) where there are so many people who need affordable day care.”

The state-funded center has provided care for children of mostly low-income, Latino families at the city-owned Colonia Park building for nearly 20 years, Rico said. The closing forced many parents to take their children to day-care centers in South Oxnard and Del Sol Park, Rico said. Fernando Minjares, a paramedic in Port Hueneme, sent his 4-year-old son, Mark, to the Green Valley center because his wife works nearby.

“It was hard” when the center closed, Minjares said. “We had to keep taking him to different places, whoever had room.” Now, Mark is back at Green Valley.

Students, too, were glad to be back.

“This is the best place to be “ said Kathy Carrillo, 8, who returned from a Mexico vacation with her family to find the center closed.

Ashley Martinez, 5, agreed, explaining, “all our toys are here.”

When the center closed “it was really bad for the kids,” said Rico. “It destroyed their feeling of security.” Now Rico says she’s determined to keep the center open and safe.

Last week the Oxnard City Council agreed to provide outdoor lighting and more frequent patrols around the one-story facility, which is located several hundred yards from the new La Colonia Memorial Park Veterans Gymnasium.

A local company donated the center’s new motion-sensor burglar alarm and insurance covered the cost of repairs and replacing most of the stolen items, including new locks for some of the doors, Rico said.

Rico also hopes to get city funding to put new bars on the windows and to fill an out-of-use wading pool with sand. Mayor Manuel Lopez said the City Council would wait to see the staff report before deciding whether the funding is appropriate.