Ross Valley committee advances work on child care center

An advisory committee working on the fate of the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center is set to prepare a draft report of its findings and a recommendation to present to the Ross Valley School District board of trustees.

The committee will meet for the fifth time at 4 p.m. Monday at the district office at 100 Shaw Drive in San Anselmo.

The panel is expected to select three of its members to write the draft report. The report could include a recommendation on whether the child care center in Fairfax can be declared as surplus property by the district.

A meeting to gather community feedback is tentatively set for 6 p.m. April 17.

A decision to declare the property as surplus would clear the way for the district, which owns the center, to sell it to its operators, who are leasing it from the district. In September, the trustees approved a resolution to complete the sale by Aug. 31.

If the sale does not go through, the district has the ability to evict the center, according to the 473-page resolution. However, trustees have told center operators that a lease extension could be granted if the parties needed more time to take final steps.

“I’ve been reassured about that,” said Heidi Tomsky, the center’s director. “They said they would extend the lease as long as things are moving forward and if a lot of work had been done.”

The Aug. 31 eviction clause “is still sitting there, and we’re aware of it,”  Tomsky said.

“I don’t anticipate that happening because of the amount of work that has already been done and the progress that’s been made by both parties,” she said.

Shelley Hamilton, board president, said she and other district representatives continue to meet with the center operators to negotiate what she said would be “a discount price” for the property.

The property in Deer Park was appraised at $3 million late last year. Hamilton said that price could be lowered if the district can gather documentation on specific benefits the center has provided to the community.

One of the items of documentation would include enrollment demographics for the families that use the center. The users are mostly low-income families or those from underserved communities.

Tomsky said the center is working with state officials to see what types of family and student data could be released. Most of that information, by law, must be kept confidential as a condition for the center to receive subsidies from the California Department of Education and the California Department of Social Services, she said.

The Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center is one of the only subsidized child care centers in Marin.

The committee’s work is the latest chapter in a saga that began last spring. That was when Terry Tao, the district’s attorney, told trustees at a public meeting that there were numerous safety code violations and other infrastructure issues at the center. The trustees, Tao said, could be held personally liable if something happens while the center is in non-compliance.

He estimated the property would need up to $8 million worth of work to get it up to code. If the money could not be raised to get the work done, he advised trustees to issue an eviction notice for the center to vacate the grounds in 30 to 60 days.

Trustees declined to follow Tao’s advice. Nonetheless, scores of families, students and community members protested and spoke out at the district’s public meetings through the end of the year.

Although trustees said the sale deadline resolution, passed in September, would protect them from liability until the sale takes place and would guarantee the center a lease until Aug. 31, many center supporters have said it was abusive and unnecessary.

Bill Madsen, a Fairfax resident, said he doubted the sale could be completed by Aug. 31. He suggested the school district might be using the committee process to “run out the clock” on the children’s center.

“They don’t really appear to be acting in good faith to offer the Children’s Center a permanent home,” Madsen wrote in a letter submitted at the advisory committee meeting on March 20.

District officials have repeatedly insisted they are acting in good faith and doing their best to complete the sale by the Aug. 31 deadline.