The Cortez City Council on Tuesday brainstormed the possibility of a city-provided day care service.
City Manager John Dougherty proposed the concept in a memo to City Council. At the workshop on Tuesday, he said he has heard anecdotally that day care in Cortez was hard to find. He wrote in the memo that he is “loathe to expand the empire” but pitched day care as a way to attract businesses and residents to Cortez.
“It seems to me that everywhere you go, day care is a serious problem,” Dougherty said. “So we can make this an economic development tool.”
He said he wanted to gauge interest with City Council before staff spent more time coming up with proposals.
In the initial stages of the conversation, Dougherty said the day care program could be housed at the Cortez Recreation Center, where the city already offers child care while people work out from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday for $3 per child per hour. He said the city could reserve a certain number of spots for the county, school district and hospital, but anyone could apply. He said large businesses like Osprey might also want to participate.
“For us it would be just break-even, whereas anybody else is going to try to make money at it,” Dougherty said.
City Councilwoman Jill Carlson said she is interested in seeing some numbers regarding the total number of kids the Cortez Recreation Center could handle and the potential cost to parents. She added that if the city wanted to care for infants, the day care program would need additional safety precautions.
“It’s not a bad idea, I want to be very clear, but I think that there are probably a lot of things that in this five-minute discussion we haven’t even considered,” Carlson said.
Councilwoman Sue Betts agreed that she would like to see some numbers. Betts, a former police officer who has worked plenty of night shifts, said there could be some consideration for parents who get off work later in the evening. She said day care programs often charge a fee for picking kids up after 6 p.m.
Planning and Building Director Sam Proffer said the Cortez Recreation Center probably would not require any retrofitting or additional safety measures for a day care program. He said the building has more fire, life and safety equipment installed beyond what was required.
