For more than a quarter of a century Mary Howard has planned activities to help keep Lancaster Manor residents happy.

"This is a special place and we don't want to see it lost," Howard said.

Now, with talks that the public, county owned nursing home may go private, she and others fear they'll lose their jobs and benefits, and residents may lose one on one attention, and even their homes.

"We don't know what's going to happen," said Howard. "If we're going to have the same job. If we're going to be offered a new job. The residents look to us to reassure them and it's very difficult to do that when we don't know ourselves. And so it's very frustrating."

And it's that frustration mixed with fear of the unknown that's creating a buzz of anxiety around the manor.

"It's like a slap in the face after we have devoted our lives to make a good county home," said Howard. It doesn't appear that they are doing very much to help us to continue to provide this service which is very unique."

The county board responded Thursday to two request from the union that represents the manor's 354 employees.

First the union requested that it meet with the board in the coming weeks to discuss the manor's future. The board agree to meet this request.

In the second request, the union asked that Deb Schorr step down as county board liaison to manor employees. This request was denied.

"The first order of business is how man we maintain care of the current residents that are at Lancaster Manor and future residents who may be interested in Lancaster Manor as a nursing home," said Ray Stevens the Lancaster County Board Vice Chair.

No decisions have been made just yet regarding the sale of the manor.

"We have certain things that we are interested in that relate to the continuing ongoing care of current residents and we want to make sure that any agreement that we have that those desires would be honored."

Honored, so employees may keep their jobs and residents, their homes.

The county board meets weekly and while it has no plans as of yet to discuss the manor next Thursday, Commissioner Stevens said it will likely be part of the discussion.