The Portage Manor clock: day 35 of 180

Vote of 6 October 2026; diligence running at 10 November 2026

Where the clock stands: The county commissioners' 2–1 vote of 6 October 2026, Rafael Morton dissenting, approved a purchase agreement, an access agreement, and a memorandum of option selling Portage Manor and thirteen additional acres to St. Thomas More Academy for $400,000, conditioned on a $9 million investment in the property. The 180-day due-diligence period the agreement sets runs from the vote to about 4 April 2027; at 10 November 2026 it stands thirty-five days in, with the academy conducting the studies the agreement contemplates — environmental review, roof and HVAC inspection, the assessments its head of school, Kevin Powers, named on the day of the vote.

The agreement's terms, completed from the press of record: Two terms the banked accounts did not carry stand in the Tribune's report of the vote and belong to the clock. During diligence the academy may terminate the agreement, or extend the diligence period by up to sixty additional days — which would carry the outside date to about 3 June 2027. And the $9 million condition, as council president Bryan Tanner's objection at the meeting put on the record, specifies no completion deadline, milestones, performance security, or reverter if the investment is not made; the sale was not opened to public bids, and the property's assessed value stands just under $1 million in the county's figures as WNDU reported them. The process dispute printed beside the transaction in October — whether the county council's May 2026 resolution required the final terms to return to the council for approval — is carried in the Controversies record's keeping; this entry keeps the clock. Whether the sale closes belongs, on the agreement's own terms, to the spring of 2027 at the earliest reading and to the update cycle.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, 7 October 2026 — the commissioners' 2–1 vote of 6 October 2026 (Morton dissenting); the purchase, access, and option instruments; the 180-day diligence, the termination right, and the sixty-day extension; the $9 million condition and the absence of deadlines or security in it; the assessed value just under $1 million (WNDU, as reported).
2. The Charities section of this history — the Portage Manor record whole (the 31 July 2023 closure; the council's 9–0 vote of May 2026; the vote of 6 October 2026), to which this entry adds the clock's arithmetic and the agreement's terms.