ARMY WILL CLOSE CHILD-CARE CENTER

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 15— The Army announced it is closing and demolishing a child-care center at its base at the Presidio after allegations that as many as 60 youngsters were sexually abused there.

Maj. Greg Rixon, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said the Presidio Child Development Center would be closed Friday and a new center would be opened by April.

A Presidio spokesman, Bob Mahoney, said the closing, which was disclosed Saturday, was for ''health, safety and sanitation reasons, and not as a result of allegations of child abuse.''

A 16-member Army review team recently inspected the Presidio center as part of an investigation of the almost 300 child-care centers run by the Army, which care for an estimated 94,000 youngsters daily.

Allegations of sexual abuse have surfaced at more than 10 percent of those centers since 1984. Among them are the centers at Fort Dix in New Jersey and the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Major Rixon, the Army spokesman, said the inspection team looked at several aspects of the Presidio center, including hiring practices.

The decision to close the center was made by Army Secretary John O. March, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Carl Vouon,o and Gen. Allen K. Ono, the deputy chief of staff for Army personnel, Major Rixon said.

Several parents of were pleased with news of the closing.

''This is a statement that the Army is going to roll up its sleeves and sort through this,'' said Capt. Mike Tobin.

''I hope the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard pay attention too,'' he said at a Saturday news conference with other parents.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/16/us/army-will-close-child-care-center.html