Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
Supporters and opponents of selling Shawano County’s old county farm property are planning to meet face to face before sending the matter to the County Board for a final decision.
At issue is a proposal to sell an estimated 150-acre portion of the town of Belle Plaine property that housed the county’s poor farm and asylum starting in the early 1900s.
County Board Chairman Jerry Erdmann and others want to sell the property as a way of unloading surplus real estate, getting it back on the tax rolls and raising money that the county could use elsewhere.
Opponents contend that the farm remains a valuable asset to the county and that redevelopment of the site would be troublesome.
The County Board will not take up the issue at its meeting Wednesday, and instead two committees will attempt to thrash out the future of the farm property in a special joint meeting.
“We’ll try to get everybody on the same page,” said Supervisor Robert Krause, chairman of the agriculture, extension and conservation committee.
Krause has voiced strong opposition to selling the farm — a proposal that has been endorsed by the public property committee.
The two committees are planning a joint meeting next month.
Supervisor Bert Huntington, chairman of the public property committee, said he anticipates that his committee will take another vote on the proposal at the upcoming joint committee meeting.
Huntington said that while he could not forecast how the debate will end, he still favors putting the property up for sale.
“Most definitely I’m in favor of disposing of some of that property,” he said. “There’s other things we can use that money for.”
The proposal calls for seeking a buyer for an estimated 150 acres currently used for agricultural purposes on the north side of state Highway 22 in Belle Plaine. Other real estate used for public recreation south of Highway 22 would not be affected by the sale and would remain county land.
Shawano County acquired the entire site in the early 1900s and operated it for several decades as a place where the mentally ill and indigent worked on crop production while living on public assistance. Part of the site later was converted into the now-former Maple Lane senior citizen facility, which remains under private ownership north of Highway 22.
The vast surrounding acreage of farmland is believed to be worth at least $4,000 an acre, which would make the county’s estimated 150 acres potentially worth $600,000.
A previous estimate put the site at 120 acres.
Krause, whose committee has taken no action yet on the sale proposal, said he still has many questions, including the reasons that members of the public property committee decided to recommend seeking a buyer.
“We’ve got to figure out why they thought it was a good idea,” he said. “The ‘why’ seems to be a stumbling block.”