The new owner of a troubled daycare center near Rome invited CNY Central reporter Jim Kenyon inside the facility Wednesday hoping to clear the air and improve its image.
Tony Rayhel has an application before the State Office of Children and Family services to re-open Treasured Times Daycare under the name of Delta Lake Daycare. Treasured Times was shut down by order of the state after 104 violations over the past two years. Rayhel is the brother of former owner Crystal Pelton. He says when his sister realized the center would close, she asked Rayhel to take over. She "put her heart and soul in this place and didn't want to see it close down, didn't want to see families get undo hardship from not being provided quality daycare, didn't want to see her employees be left without a job."
Rayhel says he left his home in Oregon and lives in an apartment above the daycare center. He says this is not an attempt to simply change names and ownership to wipe out Treasured Times past history of violations. "New York is very thorough in who they allow to run a daycare center that's why you see so many violations on the OCFS site for almost any daycare you look up."
If the state grants a new license, Rayhel says Delta Lake Daycare would handle 39 infants and children with a staff of up to 20 employees. He says it's important to reopen the facility because the community and working parents depend on it.
On Tuesday, Steve Pelton, the husband of the former owner had an angry confrontation with Kenyon just after state investigators served Treasured Times with a cease and desist order for caring for children without a license. Pelton later called Kenyon to apologize for the incident.
