Commissioners act, public reacts to Portage Manor, 2 officials' removal

SOUTH BEND — The county-owned Portage Manor has taken in adult residents within a couple of days after they’d been found to be exploited or neglected.

“Now where do people go?” Matt Costello asked of St. Joseph County commissioners Tuesday. His concern “is that many, if not most, of these people will be transferred to inadequate, distant places where their needs won’t be met."

Costello is protective services director for Logan Protective Services, a local nonprofit agency that serves as the legal guardian for some of Portage Manor’s residents.

Feb. 7, 2023:County officials tell Portage Manor residents it'll close, but not right away

It was the kind of words that St. Joseph County commissioners heard Tuesday before they voted to approve a pair of resolutions.

One allows the Portage Manor administrator to go through the lengthy process of shutting down the home — as long as the county council also approves it. The other resolution removes two members of the county’s Redevelopment Commission: Jason Critchlow and Tom Gryp.

Three council Democrats said they also feel left out of the process in the move to announce any possible closure of Portage Manor, as none of them had yet declared any decision.

Commissioner Deb Fleming proposed postponing the vote so that more community input could be heard, but neither commissioners Carl Baxmeyer nor Derek Dieter seconded her motion.

Fleming spoke passionately of many years that she and her family have supported Portage Manor with donations.

“I love helping people that are homeless and that have drug addictions,” Fleming said. “I hope this can continue because it’s been so great. My heart is breaking that it’s shutting down.”

Ultimately, she was the only one of the three commissioners to vote against the resolution.

Baxmeyer pointed out that any closure still depends on the county council approving it. He announced to residents on Feb. 7 that the home would likely close — and its 105 residents would be settled into other places to live — because it appeared council leaders weren’t inclined to finance building a new home.

He assured residents that they would remain at Portage Manor until they find new homes with help from staff and consultants.

The council has yet to make any official decision on the home. That includes the commissioners’ request for $3 million in American Rescue Plan money to support the home through its transition.

Pleas made for Portage Manor

Robyn Challinor resigned as administrator of Portage Manor in September 2021, saying she was fed up with the politics surrounding the 2022 budget proposal for the home. She came to Tuesday’s meeting to plead for keeping it open, saying it’s the only county-owned home left in Indiana.

State officials, she said, “looked at us as a state model for how we cared for the residents.”

Challinor had fallen in love with working with residents who typically “fall through the cracks.”

She’d also worked on seeking renovations of the building. She mentioned added bathrooms, new pipes, new windows and a new heating/air conditioning system that the building needed.

“Other than that, the building is sound,” she said. “The best way to save the building is to save the mission.”

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Kris Borkowski, who said she’d worked as the home’s director of nursing for 11 years, said Portage Manor went several years without deficiencies in its state inspections.

Sara Zolman, who’d worked at Portage Manor from 2019 until 2021, started to choke up when she said she’s gotten voicemails from residents asking her, “What’s going to happen to us? What can we do?”

“It is a family,” Zolman said. “It is a 30-year-old (resident) helping a 75-year-old. … It works with a heart. My heart is breaking for them. … There is no other place like this. Please postpone the vote.”

“They do a remarkable job,” Costello said.

Although it may cost a lot to run the home, he said it’s still cost efficient.

He spoke of the difficulty that the “brutal announcement” now poses for “vulnerable people.”

He suggested that agencies and professionals who work with the aged and disabled, including Logan and REAL Services, be gathered to brainstorm for solutions to keep Portage Manor open.

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Elicia Feasel, who once served as executive director of Historic Preservation Commission of South Bend & St. Joseph County, said the 116-year-old Portage Manor building was listed on the “Most Endangered List” of Indiana Landmarks in 2014. She recalled a national grant that Portage Manor had gained to study its physical needs.

She said county leaders could be recognized for saving a “one-of-a-kind” county home.

After the public had spoken, Dieter said, “Contrary to most of the speakers, people are not being thrown out on the street.”

He said the people speaking Tuesday mischaracterized commissioners as uncaring. He pointed out the time he’s spent at Portage Manor, including more than three weeks to clean up heaps of trash in the county property’s woods next to the home in 2021 after a homeless camp there led to a fire. He noted bringing 120 pumpkins to the residents and another time when the county posted signs because people were hunting in the woods — and he didn’t want residents’ safety risked if they took a stroll in the woods.

“We’ve been working on ways to make this viable,” he said. “They are understaffed and underpaid, which we have to deal with.”

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Baxmeyer took responsibility for an error in the Feb. 7 press release that stated that the council had decided to close Portage Manor. The council hadn’t yet made a decision, a fact that he actually explained to residents and news media that day. He’s told The Tribune that he regrets the error.

The error had caused frustration for council members. But Democrats also took issue with the wording of the resolution to allow Portage Manor’s closing. They said it, too, carries a sense of finality and decisions by the council.

Among other things, the resolution states: “No requests were made to the commissioners by any council members, to bring a request to fund the construction of a new Portage Manor.”

Later, it states, “since the St. Joseph County Council … had not agreed to fund the construction of a new Portage Manor or requested further research into the situation, the … Board of Commissioners were forced to announce that it would be supporting an action to relocate residents and close the facility.”

Democrats' response

Democratic council members Bryan Tanner, Diana Hess and Mark Catanzarite said they hadn’t officially declared a decision one way or another. Tanner said that he was hoping that there’d still be a chance to build a new one. One option presented to council members on Jan. 24 would have built a home for $10 million.

With so much still hanging in the balance, Tanner said, there was “no reason” to announce a likely closure. Catanzarite said Portage Manor “deserves dialog.” Hess said there could have been a different way to still talk with the residents and staff, adding, “They could have simply said we are looking at different options.”

But Baxmeyer reiterated that he felt he had to make an announcement Feb. 7 because worried calls were coming to Portage Manor that day because of a Facebook post that Tanner made. In his post, Tanner listed the various requests for the county’s remaining American Rescue Plan dollars, which included $3 million for “Portage Manor Transition.”

Tanner explained of his post, “Why should the (ARP dollars) ranking and discussion be done in a small group outside of public view?”

But Baxmeyer said people began speculating that it meant closure.

“We had to reassure staff they had jobs,” he said, fearing they might leave. “This is just the next step in the process. If the council feels we should take another approach, that is their decision.”

Redevelopment members removed

Also Tuesday, commissioners voted 3-0 to remove Critchlow and Gryp from the Redevelopment Commission. Critchlow is the Portage Township trustee. Gryp is president and CEO of Notre Dame Federal Credit Union.

The resolution states that members of the county council had requested the commissioners remove them. And, in the meeting, newly elected Republican council member Dan Schaetzle said the change follows on the wishes of the people that elected a Republican majority council.

Hess, Catanzarite and Tanner had argued at a press conference before the commissioners meeting that the council had justly reappointed both Critchlow and Gryp to the commission in December.

Schaetzle countered that the appointments had been decided by a “lame duck council” and added that “voters made it clear that they wanted a change.”

“They voted for a Republican-led council to make those changes,” he said.

Dan Caruso, a New Carlisle resident who often attends the Redevelopment Commission meetings to track the Indiana Enterprise Center, said: “I can count on Tom and Jason to ask the right questions. I see no reason why you want to break this up.”

After public comments, the commissioners didn’t discuss the two officials’ removal any further, then voted unanimously.

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph County commissioners act on Portage Manor, remove 2 officials