Kidz Zone owner could face charges

Criminal charges may be filed against the owner of a day care center that recently lost its child care license after city attorneys said they found “pretty good, solid evidence” that she forged her first aid and child care training certification documents.

Kidz Zone owner Randi Melton will appeal the revocation of her license, said her attorney, Jed Nixon.

“I can say that she is eager to clear her name,” Nixon said, adding that he couldn’t comment on specifics of the case because he hadn’t had a chance to review it.

Deputy City Attorney Warren Wilson said he has registration cards for the classes Melton claims to have attended that don’t show her as a student, as well as original documents that prove she doctored her CPR training certificate and child care certificate.

“It was forged,” Wilson said. “It’s pretty good, solid evidence.”

The case was referred to the city prosecutor’s office Tuesday, which only handles misdemeanors and could end up passing it to the county prosecutor, Wilson said.

“It’s potentially a felony,” he said.

Nixon declined to comment further until he’s examined more evidence, such as health department files and documented complaints. Melton has 10 days from Monday, the day she received notice of the license revocation, to file her appeal.

The center was open Tuesday and can remain so until the appeal process is complete, Wilson said. Should Melton disagree with the ruling on the first appeal, she can appeal to the City Council, which would make the final ruling.

“It could go on a month or a month and a half,” Wilson said.

Dawn Pratt, a Kidz Zone employee who answered the phone Tuesday, said she didn’t know anything about the license revocation except what she heard from parents that morning. Melton was unavailable for comment.

Melton operated a now-closed Kidz Zone center in Hayden that had its license revoked in May after a child broke his right femur, or thigh bone, when another child jumped on him from atop a bookcase, according to the center’s file at the Panhandle Health District.

An inspection after the incident showed the center had too many children for the number of people staffing it. The center had been alerted to the problem previously and had been placed on probation for it, according to documents from the Panhandle Health District. The district recommended revoking the Hayden center’s license, district spokeswoman Cynthia Taggart said.

The health district has substantiated four complaints against the Coeur d’Alene center since it opened in 2000. The Hayden center had six in a little more than a year.

Routine health inspections at the Coeur d’Alene center showed problems such as a lack of paper towels in the bathroom, inadequate staffing for the number of children at the center and a lack of hand-washing by employees changing diapers. Melton wrote letters of compliance in response to the problems. The most recent inspection, in December, showed no major problems.

The revoked license isn’t the only problem facing Melton and Kidz Zone. The state Department of Health and Welfare is investigating the Hayden center’s billing practices with the Idaho Child Care Program, said department spokesman Ross Mason. The program reimburses child care centers that care for children of low-income parents eligible for the program, and Mason said Kidz Zone is thought to have billed the program for more than it was actually entitled.

Mason said he couldn’t comment on the details of the investigation.