The Pines Community Center, it turns out, is required to be a licensed child-care facility after all.
The Northfield recreation center, which is operated by the nonprofit Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council and funded by municipal appropriations and program fees, is currently undergoing the child-care licensing process with the state Department of Health and Human Services.
“We do need to be licensed, and our application has actually gone into the state of New Hampshire already,” said Rose-Marie Welch, the Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council president.
The process was jump-started, officials said, after the center’s former maintenance supervisor was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting girls there.
Robert Magoon, 74, of Tilton was taken into custody May 23 after working at the center for 13 years. He recently posted $10,000 bail – that amount was reduced from $150,000 at a Sept. 13 hearing at the request of the defense.
Days after the arrest, the Monitor reported that the facility wasn’t required to be a state-licensed child-care center under HHS guidelines. A spokesman for the department said the center fell under an exemption for municipal recreation programs.
“I must have gotten 40 to 50 phone calls,” said Pat Consentino, chairwoman of the Tilton select board. “They said, ‘How can you go without a license?’ ”
Consentino said she didn’t realize the facility wasn’t licensed. She and Town Manager Joyce Fulweiler called HHS and explained that Tilton and Northfield don’t run the Pines Community Center but purchase services from the Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council, a nonprofit.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Consentino said.
HHS confirmed that it erroneously thought the facility was run by the two towns before hearing directly from them. A department spokesman said the center does, in fact, need to be licensed.
Licensing requires regular inspections for safety and cleanliness and criminal background checks of employees. In the case of Magoon, a former police officer, he had no criminal record.
After officials in Tilton – as well as Northfield – got in touch with HHS, Welch said the Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council received a letter from the state in late May about licensing requirements.
The Pines Community Center notified parents in June of the licensing process. The child-care center stayed open in the meantime, working with HHS on staff training, adding door locks and making plans for security cameras.
“They’ve been very helpful, very patient with us,” Welch said of HHS. She added that the child-care licensing application was submitted earlier this month.
“The ball is in their court right now,” Welch said. “We’ve done our part.”
Welch and others on the Tilton-Northfield Recreation Council met with Tilton and Northfield municipal officials over the summer to update them on their progress.
Both towns have continued their quarterly disbursements for the 2016 budget year. Consentino said she doesn’t necessarily think the Pines Community Center is done addressing the situation, but she sees progress.
“I would say they’re working toward it,” she said.
As the Pines Community Center makes steps to improve operations and receive a state license, Magoon faces 15 charges.
These include 13 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one count each of felonious sexual assault and simple assault.
Magoon is accused of assaulting seven girls, now ages 8 to 14, as well as a now-29-year-old woman who “has a disability that renders her incapable of freely arriving at an independent choice as to whether or not to engage in sexual conduct.”
The assaults allegedly took place between August 2012 and May 2016.
As part of his bail conditions, Magoon is prohibited from being at the community center and from having contact with any children under the age of 18. He also must wear an electronic tracking device, abide by a curfew, and submit to random home visitations and drug tests.