December 15, 2005 at 6:04 a.m.
Board action quietly closes chapter in county’s history
Board action quietly closes chapter in county’s history
The Chisago County Board last week declined to exercise its right of first refusal to match the offered sum for the Green Acres parcel. The non-profit organization Ecumen will sell the 80 acres it was given by the county--and tear down the Green Acres structure -- in order to help finance a new 68-bed nursing home Ecumen plans to build west of I-35 in North Branch.
The vote was 4-1 with Commissioner Ben Montzka asking to delay until the next meeting. Montzka felt the city of North Branch was promised it would be notified of the chance to buy-back the site and this hadn’t been done. “As a courtesy” Montzka said, North Branch officials should be given the opportunity to opt one way or the other on owning the site.
Ecumen’s notice dated November 22 activated the 20-day window whereby the county could buy the site back at the standing offer. The price to be matched was $2.2 million, according to Ecumen.
Rob Collins, the area real estate attorney hired by the county to handle the sale, advised the Board in a letter to “pass” on its right and that was the vote.
Ecumen desired the action quickly so as to not delay the plans of the purchaser, developer Shade Tree, the County Board was informed.
North Branch City Council has re-zoned the Green Acres site from large lots to small lots, and Shade Tree’s plat has gotten approval.
Looking back
Around 1904 a brick County Poor Farm Home was built on the existing Green Acres site.
Chisago County actually had two “poor farms” with the first situated in Sunrise just north of Hwy. 95. This acreage was sold around 1904 for $4,000 when the county commissioners determined that the location was not ideal.
The poor farm re-opened at the Green Acres North Branch site with construction of the 1904 project. It was also known as “Fairview Home” in the 1930s and 40’s.
In 1938 the County Board resolved that the site would cease to be a “poor farm” and would be leased to operators two years at-a-time. The politicians’ intention, that numerous other counties followed suit on, was to remove the site from legal designation as a “public institution” thereby making residents eligible to receive old age assistance grants.
Then in 1954 state laws were changed allowing counties to operate “nursing homes” and at that time the county facility was designated a nursing home and the name Green Acres was attached.
Ecumen, formerly known as Board of Social Ministry, was contracted with in the late 1980s to operate the nursing home on a lease basis and the organization has been running the home since.
A longtime Green Acres Administrator saw changes coming decades ago.
Ellis Johnson of North Branch, was the administrator at Green Acres between 1967 and 1987.
He told the County Press the county getting out of providing long term care is not a surprise. He said, “I just didn’t think it would be so costly,” referring to numerous county subsidies and the gift of the land so the new nursing home project could get off the ground.
In Johnson’s tenure there were just three levels of care at the home for skilled, intermediate and room & board care.
The levels became more intensive as the years went by and ailments required more employee time and equipment.
State regulations were beginning to increase costs and Johnson noted that in his 20 years at Green Acres he also had “...about that many county commissioners who had their own ideas about the operation.”
Johnson noted that there are also alternatives to nursing home stays now and the mission of nursing homes is evolving.
He said Green Acres had 135 beds when he was administrator and there was a waiting list for incoming residents. Green Acres Country Care Center has been down-sized over the years to where there are only about 80 residents. The new home that Ecumen will build is licensed at 68 beds.
In or around 2001 the County Board started a process to review proposals for the private sector to takeover the nursing home and develop plans for a new home.
The County Board granted the new nursing home project to Ecumen, after seeing proposals from four bidders looking to take over the county’s long term care program.
The Ecumen plan was the one chosen by the majority because those commissioners decided it most quickly and cost-effectively disengaged the county from the nursing home business.
Ecumen asked in its bid presentation for $1.375 million from the county which originally would have been a loan. The County Board instead voted to give Ecumen 80 acres (the poor farm cemetery taken out) which Ecumen would sell to finance a new nursing home. And, that’s how we got to where we are.
As a side note--
Chisago County Historical Society Director Sherry Stirling has been given the task of determining where the pauper’s gravesites are on the Green Acres property. The general area where the cemetery is believed to be was divided off from the parcel Ecumen is selling to Shade Tree.
There is a partial listing available through the historical society of those thought to be buried in the cemetery, with the first gravesite recorded in 1908.
Burial markers have been identified for 20 paupers, but according to research by historian Earl Leaf a “large number” of persons are buried in unmarked graves.
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