Day care moving slowly

Kids to stay longer in tainted building

RALEIGH -- About 25 children remain in a Southeast Raleigh day care more than a year after asbestos and lead paint were discovered there.

This week, the city granted New Bern Avenue Day Care an extension on its deadline to leave the Raleigh-owned building, meaning the children will stay until at least Sept. 11.

Its director, Alyssa Strayhorn, said that all children have been tested and show no signs of lead poisoning and that the asbestos is confined to a crawlspace where children never go.

Meanwhile, the front door is wrapped in plastic and duct tape to prevent the spread of lead paint chips and dust.

"We're concerned about it," Mayor Charles Meeker said.

The hazards threaten a historic building at Tarboro and Edenton streets, designed 40 years ago to serve low-income families. Its founder, the late Jorean Debnam, is so respected that Wake County SmartStart named its annual child-care award for her.

Before the contamination was discovered two winters ago, enrollment topped 60 children. Now it has slipped to about 25, Strayhorn said, and her business is constantly threatened by the lead and asbestos. Fees at New Bern range from $605 to $900 a month, depending on the child's age.

40 years in that place

Strayhorn thinks the asbestos and lead danger is a ruse for the city to take over and redevelop the property, which sits only about a mile from downtown.

"You have let us sit in this stuff for all these years," she said. "November will be 40 years that we've been in that building. All we want is the time to upfit a new building."

Wake County Environmental Services recently gave the center "disapproval" status for its failure to abate the lead.

But all the county can do is make recommendations, said Richard Wagoner, a section chief with Wake County Environmental Services. Even testing the children was voluntary, he said, meaning the county cannot be sure all children were tested.

It is up to the state to determine the status of New Bern's license. Documents related to the case show a long back-and-forth among the center, city and county over paperwork. It took several months last year for the center to provide the city with a legible list of children's names.

"It's a long process," Wagoner said. "As long as they have interim measures in place, there's no real danger to the kids."

Plastic on the doors counts as part of those interim measures. Some the plastic came loose on one door, Wagoner said, but the center restored it quickly.

"We just try to make sure people mop really good," he said. "That's just good housekeeping."

Meeker said the city gave the center more time because architect's drawings have been delayed for its new storefront location off Rogers Lane in East Raleigh.

Strayhorn said she hopes New Bern makes the deadline. Either way, she won't be coming back to the old building.

"I'm not dealing with the city of Raleigh anymore," she said. "I'm not dealing with the possibility of them kicking us out of there."