Amid much fanfare and applause, the Waipahu Community Adult Day Health Care Center and Youth Day Care Center was dedicated in 2003 as a place where needy elderly and youth would be served.

But as the work week begins today, the 6,000-square-foot facility will stand empty — the result of a long, ugly dispute between former state Sen. Cal Kawamoto, who spearheaded the creation of the center, and the operators of the youth and eldercare programs there.

Parents and staffers of the O'ahu Head Start preschool were scrambling on Friday for a place to go after Kawamoto ordered the operation out by the end of the day unless it paid a higher lease amount.

Kawamoto said the youth and elderly program operators refused to pay their bills. The operators said Kawamoto is bullying them by jacking up their fees, and that they have been withholding payment pending a resolution of who is in charge of managing the property. The matter is in litigation, with two sides claiming to have the rightful board of directors of the center.

Late Friday afternoon, with Kawamoto standing watch, Head Start employees said farewell to their students and moved furniture and other belongings out of the building.

Head Start officials said about 20 students will move this week to a new, temporary site at the old Kunia plantation — about eight miles north. About half a dozen others are moving to another Head Start location in Halawa, while four others are going to Head Start-sponsored residential locations.

Initial discussions have begun for Head Start to take over a vacant preschool site at the Waipahu United Church of Christ, next to the Waipahu day center.

Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, said the agency is expediting an application for a permit to operate a childcare center on the church site and expects it to be finished in about 10 days.

But Kim Kang, a Head Start assistant director, said that from a logistical standpoint, the new Waipahu center probably can't open until December.

Angry parents blamed Kawamoto for the chaos, and said they can't understand why children's lives are being disrupted.

"The children and the staff here are the ones being hurt the most," said Laureen Hino, whose 4-year-old son, Leighton Aoki, was attending the preschool. "My son cries every night, knowing his school is closing."

Hino, who lives in Waipio Gentry and works in Kalihi, said the drive up to Kunia is a long detour. Students are allowed to arrive beginning at 7, leaving her a small window to get to work. "If I have to go to Kunia, I would never make it," she said.

Joseph Miarecki, another parent, was angry that Kawamoto had chained the gate to the facility's parking lot Friday morning, even before his deadline to have the care center out by the end the day.

'WE'RE BEING HARASSED'

Miarecki said the facility is being leased to the center for $1. He wants government officials to take action against Kawamoto for breaking his lease, which includes a promise to provide services.

"We're being harassed, and it needs to stop," Miarecki said. "He should deal with his court case in private and leave us alone."

Kawamoto said he doesn't think he is being unreasonable, adding that he has operators who can provide senior and preschool services when the existing parties left.

Both Health for All and Head Start paid a fee for common area maintenance, Kawamoto said. "We didn't feel we should charge enormous prices for the space that they got."

The management company he and daughter Nina Kawamoto run, CKK Consultants, got approval from the original center board to up its fees from $1,000 a month to $2,000 a month beginning in 2006 not just because of increasing electricity and other utility costs but because of the increasing demands made by the tenants.

Kawamoto said hiring the Sacramento, Calif.-based Health for All was a mistake, a decision based largely on the fact that the principal owner of the company, Dr. Richard Ikeda, is originally from Waipahu.

DUELING BOARDS

Kawamoto and a group claiming to be the board of directors for the community center is in litigation with a group headed by Ikeda, also an original board member, that also claims to be the rightful board. Head Start has "been fantastic," Kawamoto said, but is trying to take advantage of his board's dispute with Ikeda in order to gain more favorable lease terms.

Head Start officials said they had been depositing their fees into an escrow account pending a settlement between Kawamoto's group and Ikeda's.

Kawamoto says Ikeda tried to oust him as facility manager and establish a new board, but Ikeda said he had no choice but to find new members because many original members could not be found.

Last Thursday, Kawamoto's board added some new members of its own and installed former state Rep. Alex Sonson as its president. Kawamoto described himself as board vice president and the center's volunteer executive director.

The new board also voted to begin charging rent — $1.65 a square foot.

By all accounts, Health For All has not been successful operating a daycare facility for needy seniors and other adults who are disabled. Ikeda himself said that at its peak in 2007, there were 14 people enrolled.

Ikeda said it was taking time for the Department of Human Services to give him clearance to accept people on Medicaid, making it difficult for him to get patients.

His group received no payment from any of the patients who did receive service, Ikeda said.

The adult center continued to operate as a free nutrition education program for seniors and the disadvantaged, a program that has helped scores of people, Ikeda said.

Kawamoto and the Waipahu center have been the center of controversy before.

COMPLAINT DISMISSED

In August, the state Campaign Spending Commission ended a five-year investigation into Kawamoto when it dismissed a complaint against the former state senator alleging that he improperly transferred $130,000 of his campaign money into the Waipahu center.

Kawamoto's attorney, Earl Anzai, said the commission had misinterpreted state law when it cited Kawamoto for transferring remaining campaign funds to the Waipahu center.

The transfers were governed by a section of state law allowing for unlimited donations by a candidate, Anzai said.

The transfer came after Kawa-moto lost a re-election bid in November 2004.

The dismissal, however, had no bearing on a 2004 settlement with the commission in which Kawamoto and his campaign agreed to pay $21,250 in fines for failing to report dozens of campaign contributions.

Building of the Waipahu center was financed by a $2.7 million city grant and a $245,000 gift from the nonprofit Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. It is on state land under a 30-year lease agreement with the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, which receives $1 a year in rent from the organization.

Parent Donna Swallow said her 4-year-old daughter, Jamie, will now need to go to the Kunia site, a change that disrupts the schedule for herself, her husband and their five children.

"I don't know why they can't stay open while they argue about it," Swallow said. "It's not like they're going to demo the building or there's some kind of health issue. It's like (Kawamoto) no care."