Conflicts exist between the Watertown Boys & Girls Club and a daycare center, and if an eviction petition is successful, it could leave 60 families desperate for immediate care for their children.
First Path Day Care Center was housed in the WBGC for 26 years but was asked to move out of the space as the organization’s board of directors plans a $1.6 million renovation of the ground floor to meet the “growing need for high-quality after-school care.”
First Path filed for bankruptcy in late July to “take advantage of the protections provided by law, including an automatic stay,” because a building the company purchased elsewhere in Watertown for $2.4 million in early 2023 is not yet ready for occupancy.
The WBGC filed a motion to lift eviction protections in federal bankruptcy court last Monday, causing uncertainty among First Path officials and families.
“The potential risk of losing a daycare for our children that we have relied on for years is obviously very scary and upsetting,” Watertown resident Tanya Mandel told the Herald. “If that daycare were to close for even a few months or weeks, it would be a significant disruption to our family.”
The ground floor renovation, which the WBGC has been seeking for years, will create space for a “brand new licensed child care program…the only one in Watertown to offer licensed afterschool care for up to 85 children” in kindergarten through 3rd grade.
This is according to a letter that Alan Medville, chairman of the WBGC board of directors, wrote to the hyperlocal newspaper Watertown News late last month.
Medville stressed that construction will begin in August and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. “We are ready to move forward, but we cannot,” he wrote. “The obstacle is First Path Daycare.”
The club notified First Path in December 2021 of its intention “not to renew the lease, 18 months before the lease expires on June 30, 2023.” Since then, Medville said, the daycare has “failed to comply with its agreements,” even after WBGC granted extensions to vacate.
“First Path has threatened to … launch a public relations campaign portraying the WBGC as the villain to further delay the move,” Medville wrote. “While we are grateful for the relationship we have had with First Path to date, we are very disappointed in their response to our patience and support. Further delays could significantly increase the cost of our project.”
In court filings, WBGC’s attorneys stated that First Path “claimed the new site could be ready by the end of October,” but that estimate was “highly speculative.” The Watertown Zoning Board of Appeals declined to issue a building permit on July 30.
“Due to the project’s scheduled start of construction this month, WBGC respectfully requests an expedited decision on this motion to avoid further delays,” the attorneys wrote. “Any delay in returning the leased space exposes WBGC to potential increases in construction costs as well as overall completion of the project.”
First Path officials argue that they emailed WBGC in 2020 to negotiate a new lease, and the club declined the request, saying they should “wait and see” and “the process begins!”
The daycare center also “paid 50% more rent to stay at WBGC” while construction continues on the new location, program director Aleksandra Pikus and executive director Max Bolyasnyy wrote in a letter to Watertown News earlier this month.
Pikus and Bolyasnyy spoke of a possible conflict of interest because the WBGC building and land are owned by the city and the board members are “connected to the city in one way or another.”
“To make matters worse,” Pikus and Bolyasnyy wrote, “Mr. Medville and the WBGC Board decided to make this matter public and accuse us of ‘making the WBGC the bad guy.’ It appears they did indeed do that. It is a sad end to a productive partnership that has lasted more than a quarter of a century.”
Tanya Mandel and her husband Denis have been sending their two children, ages 2 and 5, to First Path for years. They said the situation was “really urgent” because they are working parents and would have to look for alternative solutions if their children lost their “stable environment.”
“It makes my blood boil to think about our children not being able to go to daycare for months,” Denis Mandel told the Herald. “It’s terrible, it’s really scary how politicized and bureaucratic this is. … It’s no longer constructive.”
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