Boy Scouts Weigh Merits
Of Unloading Real Estate

BRADENTON, Fla. -- For 77 years, Boy Scouts have spent nights telling stories around the campfires at Camp Flying Eagle, beneath a lush canopy of oaks and Spanish moss on the banks of the Manatee River.

That ritual may soon be over. With the Gulf Coast's hot real-estate climate enveloping the area, developers have offered to buy the camp from the Southwest Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America for as much as $13 million, setting off a local battle.

Scout boosters here want to hang onto Camp Flying Eagle, arguing that the original land donors intended it to always be used for scouting. Selling the camp, says retired Army Col. B.J. "Red Dog" Maynard, would "dishonor and disrespect all those people who took care of the camp when money wasn't as easily available." Col. Maynard, a longtime volunteer at the camp, has joined a group that filed a lawsuit in September against the scout council to block any future sale.

Fights like this are playing out across the country, as scouting groups face lean coffers and declining membership. Many councils, especially those in hot real-estate markets, are debating whether to cash in on skyrocketing property values. As a result, struggles -- over camp land and all it symbolizes to local residents -- have erupted in such states as Michigan, Texas, Arizona and Washington. Mere rumors of a possible sale often spur action by community members. Some try to buy the camps themselves or align themselves with nonprofit organizations to bolster their chances in a bidding war. Others file lawsuits or wage zoning battles.

Boy Scout and Cub Scout participation was about 6.5 million in 1972, but totals about 4.2 million today, excluding new programs. That decline has caused some councils to merge, sometimes creating organizations with multiple camps and not enough money to maintain them. Each Boy Scout council is a corporation, beholden to the policies of the national organization, based in Irving, Texas, but they raise their own funds, manage their finances and make decisions about property and programs.

Increasingly, councils face stark marketplace realities. Here in Manatee County, Fla., for example, land that could be used for single-family housing is going for $60,000 to $100,000 an acre. From year-end 2002 to year-end 2005, the median sales price for an existing single-family home in the Sarasota-Bradenton area jumped to $322,700 from $165,900, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

"In the scouting world, [selling land] is the most emotional topic that comes before a council," says Jack Crawford, scout executive of the Boy Scouts' Three Rivers Council in Beaumont, Texas, which sold a 132-acre camp in 2001 due to financial pressures. "To sell a camp, that's about the worst possible thing, because all those memories are there."

Here in Bradenton, on Florida's west coast, Boy Scout officials are being pragmatic about a possible sale. "We have a lot of youth for whom we are providing programs, and we will not allow anything to come before that," says Tyrone Shinn, a local banker who is on the council's board. "But as a board member, you have to look at it as a business decision."

Informal Offers

Camp Flying Eagle isn't even formally on the market. That hasn't prevented people from wanting to buy the roughly 185-acre camp -- or the Boy Scouts from taking their offers seriously. Executives with the Southwest Florida Council, a governing body that oversees 26,000 scouts, say it would be irresponsible not to consider offers that might benefit the council in the future.

Scout volunteers, local citizens and youth have rallied to block a sale. One Cub Scout pack is building a "Save Camp Flying Eagle" float for the DeSoto Heritage Parade, to be held in April. This month, the Bradenton Rotary passed a resolution supporting the camp's preservation. A group of scout volunteers, meanwhile, has promised to blitz the national Boy Scouts headquarters with letters.

Margi Nanney, a Bradenton-area scouts official, says it is getting tough to solicit pledges from local businesses and other once-supportive groups. "Now, they say, 'No, because you're going to sell the camp.' "

Scouting isn't about land ownership, says Gregg Shields, spokesman for the national Boy Scouts of America, which takes a neutral stance on camp sales. It is about preparing young people to make moral choices over their lifetime, with outdoor education being one way to help achieve that goal. "Maybe the location changes. That happens," he says. "But the mission has not changed."

That mission, however, doesn't reel in the number of youths it once did. Today, scouting faces competition from an explosion of after-school activities, from sports to martial arts to private tutoring. "When I was a kid back in the 60s, there just weren't a whole lot of things to do," Mr. Shields says.

The pressure to sell land is greatest in urban areas where real-estate prices have soared and the costs to staff and maintain camps are highest, says Erik Kulleseid, New York state program director for the Trust for Public Land. The nonprofit group has helped secure funding to save several camps from development, including Camp Glen Gray in Northern New Jersey.

The council in Beaumont, Texas -- saddled by debt and unable to pay its staff -- couldn't afford to maintain its two camps. It sold the smaller one, Camp Bill Stark, for $276,000. Members of the Stark Foundation, whose founder donated the land 70 years earlier, felt betrayed after part of the land was clear-cut by developers.

"Every time I go up there, it makes me sick," said Walter Riedel III, a former Eagle scout and chairman of the Orange, Texas, foundation, a not-for-profit group that provides education and arts grants. "It's just barren -- sort of what it looked like after the tsunami."

For other councils, the silver lining to a sale is better service for scouts. At a Jan. 14 public hearing in Michigan's Blue Lake Township, dozens of people spoke against a proposed zoning change that would allow the 4,776-acre Owasippe Scout Reservation to be turned into housing. Some lamented the loss of a childhood institution; others wondered what effect development would have on sewage and water systems. If Owasippe is sold, for an estimated $19.4 million, the Chicago Area Council that controls it might be able to buy land closer to the youths it serves -- and still add to its endowment.

'A Special Little Place'

At Bradenton's Camp Flying Eagle, lizards and armadillos scurry under dense palmettos. The Manatee River turns murky when it ebbs with the Gulf of Mexico's tide. In the early days of the camp, supplies were brought in by boat. In the '50s, boys plotted to outwit the camp cook, Miss Bertie Crawford, to sneak late-night snacks. Generations of campers shared their memories for a book, "Diamond on the Manatee," commemorating the camp's 75th anniversary in 2004. "It's a special little place that is cut off from the rest of the world," says Eric Wolf, a scout who is now a freshman at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

The Manatee County Boys Development Association, a scout-booster group formed in 1929, raised $2,000 to buy the land for Camp Flying Eagle. For decades, the association leased the camp to a local Boy Scout council, Sunny Land, for $1 a year. In 1991, the association deeded the camp to Sunny Land with the understanding that it wouldn't be sold.

However, the association put no restrictions in the deed when it handed over Camp Flying Eagle, says association attorney John Harllee III. At the time, there didn't seem to be a need, he says.

By 1995, the Sunny Land Council was in financial straits and merged with the Southwest Florida Council, based in Fort Myers. As a result, the Southwest Council, now stretching 150 miles, became the owner of Camp Flying Eagle.

The Manatee Boys Development Association says the Southwest Florida Council knew of Sunny Land's promise to use the land solely for scouting. Mr. Harllee says the association wants the land returned or for a judge to block the scouts from selling it.

Gary Hampton, scout executive for the Southwest Florida Council, says he opposes any effort to limit the council's options. Unlike some others, it isn't struggling financially. Still, Mr. Hampton points out that camp upgrades are costly. Camp Flying Eagle, for example, needs $3 million for capital improvements such as updated bathrooms. To sell the land, the executive board and the scout unit representatives must be in agreement.

In 2000, the Foundation for Dreams, a local nonprofit group that offers disabled children an outdoor experience, signed a lease for 10 acres of Camp Flying Eagle. The lease gave the foundation the right of first refusal to buy the camp. In 2002, the foundation offered $750,000 for the camp in a deal that would have preserved the land for youth recreation. The price was deemed too low, though the foundation said the offer matched the council's appraised value.

Mr. Hampton recalls developers offering as much as $5 million for the camp in late 2003. The following year, Manatee County offered $3 million. Its logic: The county hoped to prevent further residential sprawl in the floodway downstream of the Manatee Dam, while giving the scouts an infusion of cash and letting them continue using the camp.

A Worrying Precedent

The scout council got skittish about that possibility. In January 2004, after a federal judge ruled that the City of San Diego's $1 a year lease with the Boy Scouts was unconstitutional, the city settled with the American Civil Liberties Union and terminated the lease. (The scouts, who were being sued over their exclusion of gays and atheists, can still use the park while they appeal the judge's decision.)

That precedent worried the owners of Camp Flying Eagle. "Should we make a deal with a government entity that now is very happy with us but someday in the future might not be?" Mr. Hampton asks.

Community fears that Camp Flying Eagle would be sold next erupted last summer after the scouts began quiet discussions with Silver Cos., a Fredericksburg, Va., builder of luxury homes. On Aug. 10, the executive committee turned down the company's offer of $12 million, saying the price was too low. A follow-up offer of $13.2 million was never considered, because the Boys Development Association filed its lawsuit in Manatee County's 12th Judicial Circuit Court on Sept. 13, just hours before the executive committee was to discuss it.

Meanwhile, Gerald Pankow, vice president of land acquisition and development for Silver Cos., says his company has pulled all offers. "Until this thing is settled, I have no interest in the properties," he says.

As all sides mull their options, the camp faces the possibility of devaluation. On Feb. 9, Manatee County's planning commission will consider changes that could lead to new zoning rules disallowing single-family housing on the camp land. Such action stands to significantly lower the market value of the camp.

Regardless of what happens, Kevin Hennessy, the scouts' lawyer, says that change isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"I think that people are trying to preserve the past and preserve what Manatee County used to be," he says. "There should be an understanding that things change, and you have to be able to adapt. The Boy Scouts are adapting."

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