Day-Care Closure a Tragic Mistake

Re “Low-Income Day Cares to Be Closed” (Sept. 14):

How sad and critically important that all those publicly assisted day-care centers have to close for the lack of $1 million. Here would be an excellent way for Henry Segerstrom, Joan Irvine Smith, and some of their friends to make a truly beautiful and magnanimous contribution to the people of Orange County.

BILL PRYOR

Anaheim

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Shutting a 25-year program that provides day care for 1,000 low-income children, infants through l2-year-olds, is irresponsible, fiscally short-sighted and immoral.

The aim is to provide school readiness skills and enrichment, while enabling parents to hold jobs and gain economic self-sufficiency. Isn’t this the goal of welfare reform?

It is unreasonable to assume that the alternatives suggested by the Department of Education of small family day-care centers or those run by school districts could be as high quality as this has proved to be for a quarter century.

With a California state budget surplus, favorable economic times, and a wealthy Orange County, it seems to me to be hypocrisy to claim that “children are our future” but not be able to find resources for children of low-income families.

VALORIE DIERKS HAFNER

Buena Park

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It’s always interesting, and often frightening, to take a look at the priorities in Orange County. Our county leaders are quite willing to abandon day care for low-income children because of a relatively paltry $1 million shortfall. Yet the county doesn’t hesitate for a moment to squander over $40 million (and still counting) of taxpayer money on a hopelessly flawed quest to bring an unwanted and unnecessary international airport to El Toro. I can only assume the goal of our county leaders is to ensure a sufficiently large supply of uneducated future voters dumb enough to keep the likes of supervisors Chuck Smith, Cynthia P. Coad and Jim Silva in office.

RICHARD SODEN

Lake Forest