Little Munchkins Child Care
Anchorage, AK 99504
(907) 332-8593 work & fax
To whom it may concern,
Please accept this letter as testimony to the harassing and unreasonable conduct that I have been subjected to by employees of the Municipality of Anchorage, Department of Health and Social Services. The problems I am encountering are directly related to my businesses as a childcare provider; a business I have been operating since 1999. I conducted this business as a licensed provider with the Municipality between 2000 and 2001.
Most, if not all, of my terrible experiences with the Municipality’s Department of Health and Social Services began in February of 2001 when Sue Averill was hired as a Child and Adult Specialist for that Department. While I fully respect the duties and responsibilities that she has in this position, I believe my testimony here will document that there is a history of inappropriate harassment from Ms. Averill.
During the year 2001, I started a regular day that I labeled as “Parent-Time”. This was a day in which I would allow parents to drop off their children and leave them with me up to 10:00pm without being charged for the day. In October of that year, I was providing services during a “Parent-Time” day and chose to take the children to see a movie. I teamed up with another care provider and, in all; we had 14 children and 6 adults going to the movies.
During the movie the children were very well behaved. Not far into the film, I observed Ms. Averill and a colleague of hers, Ms. Mary Carty, inside the cineplex. In fact, at one point when I was returning to the theater from escorting two children to the restroom, I crossed paths with Ms. Averill. No words were exchanged, so I thought little of the situation. I did note, though, that after the movie was done, Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty were in the parking lot of the theater observing me and the other childcare provider as we help load up the children to go back to my childcare facility. Within 90 minutes of returning to the childcare facility, Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty were at my facility indicating that they needed to perform an inspection of the facility as they had a complaint from the movie theater. I called the theater the next day and inquired about the complaint. The supervisor who was on shift indicated that he had no complaints whatsoever from staff or customers. He did note that Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty came into the theater minutes after our arrival there and, after showing identification as Municipality employees, demanded to be let in and directed to the cinema we were at. I directly asked Ms. Averill who filed the complaint in the theater and she indicated it was anonymous. Since Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty was in the theater during the time we were there and actually observed us leave the theater and was at my facility within 90 minutes of our departure from the theater, I do not believe there was any complaint from the theater, anonymous or not.
While Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty were conducting their inspection, I had two parents contact me indicating they would be slightly late from picking up their kid from care. I didn’t think that a problem until another client came in with the requirement to drop off her kid early. I reluctantly allowed the child to come into the facility, as I understood that the client was being called into work early and needed a childcare facility. However, this occurred during Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty’s inspection. They noted that, due to the late pickup and early drop off that my facility was over capacity.
In December of 2004 I had to rebuke a client who yelled at a child in the facility, although the child was not the client. According to my contract with clients, this is unacceptable and intolerable. The contract clearly indicates that such behavior warrants a warning and a repeat offense will result in the dismissal of services to the client.
Almost immediately after this incident, the client didn’t show up one day. That same day, though, Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty arrived with an authority from the Anchorage Fire Department indicating they needed to conduct an inspection because of a complaint they had. Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty would not disclose the nature of the complaint. I am led to believe that the complaint originated from the unhappy client that I had to rebuke.
The next few months went without issue. Without notice, in May of 2005, Ms. Averill and Ms. Carty arrived at my facility to perform an inspection, indicating that they were following up about the complaint in December of 2004. I was still left unsure as to what the complaint was about, what was found as a deficiency, what I needed to remedy and what Ms. Averill’s findings were.
The next period of peace lasted much shorter. In August of 2005, I had my most unbelievable experience. Ms. Averill, Ms. Carty, Ms. Sledgister and Ms. Decker from the Municipality arrived with three police officers (Karstetter, D. Starr and Flack) with an administrative search warrant. The search warrant allowed the Municipal employees to take photos and video of items while on the property of the facility. It also allowed the Municipality to temporarily seize, for the purpose of copying, business or financial records found on the facility or in vehicles.
In serving the warrant, the Municipal employees search every room in the facility and in my house, to include bathrooms, my children’s room, and my bedroom. The employees took photos of every child that I was caring for in my facility, without permission of any manner from me or from the childrens’ parents. In conducting their search and seizure, they broke a cabinet in a bathroom, seized personal mail addressed to me, seized personal mail addressed to my ex-husband and fiancée, rummaged through my purse, and took mail from my mailbox. When I received the property back, they had opened and inspected (and presumably copied) even the personal mail that they found in my house. This was an administrative warrant and they conducted their search and seizure in a manner that looked like a Hollywood rendition of the search and seizure of a major criminal’s house.
The summary of this detail is to illustrate how these employees have been harassing me in the conduct of my business. I believe that they have even fabricated false complaints as a justification to conduct harassing inspections of the facility. I have seen them follow us around town when we take the kids on field trips and activities and though they have an obligation to help ensure childcare facilities are providing safe environments for children, their harassment has gone beyond extreme.
I have talked to other childcare providers who are not licensed through the Municipality. I am under the impression that such treatment from the Municipal employees is common. Given this I urge the senior management of the Department of Health and Social Services to investigate this activity and, if improvements are needed, to implement effective changes. I also respectfully request a formal response to this complaint addressing my concerns.
With sincere regards,
Katrina Hargrove
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