Childcare. In a time when nearly every household is made up of either two working parents or a single working parent, quality childcare is an essential piece of most families' childrearing puzzle.

While few would dispute the importance of safe and educational environments for children, the question for the Town of Wawarsing as it deals with Creative Stages Daycare is, "at what cost?"

Three years ago, Darlene Beiling was wooed away from a successful daycare practice in Sullivan County to provide daycare services to Wawarsing residents. This was after the Town Board had decided that it needed to provide its citizens with childcare. The Board of that time knew it owned an otherwise vacant building in Napanoch and it was looking to fill the space with something that would benefit the community. So, that Town Board formed a lease agreement with Ms. Beiling and she went about opening her daycare facility.

However, on Thursday, August 17, the current Town Board decided not to renew the lease agreement they had made with Ms. Beiling. The strongest objections included concerns about the daycare's financial viability as Creative Stages has not been able to keep up with all of its financial commitments, which include $758 in rent, fuel costs and water and sewer charges.

Currently, the facility is up-to-date with its utility payments but has not provided a rental payment for any of 2006 – an amount of roughly $6,000.

And another cost that is looming is the facility's 'payment in lieu of taxes' (PILOT for short), which is levied on a yearly basis. At $4,000 a year, Creative Stages owes $12,000 to the Town in lieu of the fact that it does not pay property taxes.

But these figures matter little to the 58 families that have been helped by Creative Stages Daycare. Destini Peluso, a 22-year old single mother who works full time at Shop Rite during the summer and attends Ulster County Community College full time during the Fall and Spring semesters, has been bringing her two-year-old, Dalezyah, to the center for the past year. She expressed the sentiments of many single parents saying, "It would hurt single parents who are working because there would be no other place to put them. I don't know if I could do anything [school or work] if it were to close."

Roxanne Lang, a Staff Sergeant stationed at Stewart but living in Ellenville is also unsure about where her daughter, Brianna, would go. Lang has been in the service for six years and moved to Ellenville about a year ago. Both she and her husband are in the military and they have no family around to take care of their two-year-old girl. "I have been very happy with it. She's older so she doesn't need to sit in someone's house.

Every day she comes home with a new word. It kind of amazes me." As for other daycare facilities, Lang responds, "This is it."

For Jennifer Jackson, the daycare center has been a part of her son's life since he was six weeks old. Jackson works in the medical office at the local prison and says that, "I have no worries when I drop Dior [her son] off. And there is no other daycare that I would bring my son."

Jackson expressed her frustration with the Board as she explained, "I don't think they understand the need for this daycare. If they would listen to each of the parents with their hearts and not just look at the financial side, I think they would see how important it is."

At least one member of the Town Board, Supervisor James Dolaway, is committed to saving the daycare center. He has spoken with other Board members and is trying to construct a plan that would allow Ms. Beiling the opportunity to pay the Town all of the money it is owed over a three-year period. His plan would be to take the PILOT amount of $12,000 and the back rent of $6,000 and divide them into 36 equal payments that would be paid out over and above the center's monthly rent. Dolaway would also like to lessen the monthly rent burden on the facility by reducing it to roughly $400 per month.

The Wawarsing Town Board will be holding an executive session meeting on Wednesday, September 6 to consider the fate of the center. And at the end of the day, when you spoke with vendors, each admitted that they would have liked to have seen more activity, but most said that they were pleased with their individual outcomes with the weather being what it was.

One local resident, after considering the day's events, said, "It was touch and go there for awhile. But, you know? The community really pulled it off. We should be really proud."

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