COSTA MESA : Child-Care Directory, Network in Works

The city’s Child Care and Youth Services Committee, which has languished for two months, will embark on two new projects: setting up a directory of child-care services and creating an intracity network of agencies that help young people.

Committee members, who presented their plan earlier this month to the City Council, said the network could help reduce gang, drug, vandalism and theft problems in the city. The directory will be distributed citywide.

“I guess I see (the network) as the ultimate in gang prevention,” committee member Gay Geiser-Sandoval told the council.

But one resident argued that the network would be redundant. “We’ve got church groups that are very active,” said Ernie Feeney, who monitors the city’s budget. “It just seems like we would be duplicating their efforts.”

The group, formerly called the Child Care Committee, last met in September and has been waiting to see if the council wanted to dissolve it to save money, Geiser-Sandoval said.

Geiser-Sandoval said the group will meet Jan. 18 to discuss new work. The child-care directory will be distributed at the library, City Hall and schools.

Geiser-Sandoval said the intracity network could be a way for Costa Mesa organizations that help children to work together. “I think probably the biggest problem right now is the duplication between groups,” she said.