BSA Camp Kilworth bites the dust...

[concerned_scout66]

A deal to sell Camp Kilworth, run by Pacific Harbors Council and located in Federal Way, WA has been struck with local developers.

 

This camp, like so many other BSA camps, was donated in the early 1930's by a local philanthropist for the use of the Scouts. The camp sits on a beautifully treed piece of land overlooking the beautiful Puget Sound. The camp is only 30 minutes from Seattle and Tacoma. There are sufficient buildings and campsites but, unfortunately, the camp is poorly maintained, badly managed, and not promoted even within the council.

 

This land is worth millions of dollars but, there's a catch, BSA doesn't own it. In this case, the deed stipulates that if the camp is not maintained and used by the "Tacoma area Boy Scouts", the ownership of the property will revert back to the Kilworth heirs. BSA can't sell the property because it doesn't own it.

 

To get around this provision, the local council has struck a deal with a few representatives of the Kilworth family. BSA will give back the property if the Kilworths will cut them in for a major portion of the profits. They've even arranged a deal with a local developer that wants to harvest the timber and put expensive view homes on the property. In this deal, Pacific Harbors Council stands to gain about $2.3M for which the Kilworth family will pocket a tidy $1M bribe. Local Scouters are split on the deal. Some are accepting the Council's story that the family wants to donate the proceeds while others have noticed that the family is in no way in agreement and are encouraging the Kilworth family to just take possession of the property and keep the entire $3.3M.

 

I'm sorry guys, this stinks. If I had donated property like this to BSA so that the boys could enjoy it, I would hope that it would be well managed, taken care of, and promoted instead of being sold to developers.

[evmori]

Is there another camp around the Scouts can use?

 

National better look up thrifty!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[OldGreyEagle]

Ed, how does National figure into council affairs? How would you like National telling your council to do with Council assets?

 

"...the camp is poorly maintained, badly managed, and not promoted even within the council..."

 

Sounds like a place I would want to keep around. perhaps there is more to the story

 

[concerned_scout66]

Ed,

 

The closest Pacific Harbors Council camp is about 90 minutes away (on a good day). Kilworth is situated between Seattle and Tacoma. It used to be on the edge of the Seattle and Tacoma suburbs but is now right smack in the middle of them.

 

In the past, Kilworth was frequently used. There is a lodge (donated by Rotary in the 40's or 50's), 2 firebowls, 2 ranges, and campsites for maybe 300 boys. Until about 10 years ago, there was a very popular short trail down to the beach.

 

Despite the efforts of the local Scouters, the Council seems to have little interest in the camp. The lodge, firebowls, ranges, campsites, and beach trail have been badly maintained. The lodge is in fair shape but the rest are quite degraded. Once the beach trail became unusable, the school district stopped bringing kids there and the funds that came from that source were lost.

 

Right now, Kilworth is used primarily for day/twilight camp, Eagle ceremonies (there are nesting bald eagles on the site), OA meetings, firebowls, family camp, SM trainings, etc. The ranger still appears to live there but has a job in-town so is unavailable. During the last event I tried to hold at the lodge there, we found the lodge locked, ranger gone, and the council hadn't even notified the ranger we were coming.

 

The biggest impact to the local Scouters will be the loss of the CS day camp and twilight camp. The local OA Chapter has invested thousands of manhours and raised their own funds to renovate one of the run-down buildings which it also uses for chapter meetings. This building will probably be bull-dozed with the rest.

[evmori]

My bad OGE. I meant the Council.

 

Sounds like a camp in my area. The Council wanted to bulldoze the old mess hall & get rid of the camp. The volunteers from my district & quite a few others got together & completely redid the mess hall turning it into a bunkhouse for 30 Scouts and 10 adults. It has a full kitchen with working gas stove & a full bath with a shower. The other 3 camping cabins were cleaned & painted. The Campmaster building was completely renovated and a stage was added. It is now use by Troops & Packs for weekend camping & Districts for training & camporees.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[OldGreyEagle]

Ok, Ed, Now I understand your comment. But your second question, unaswered as yet is valid. Does the Council have a second camp?

 

As yet I am not sure this is a good or bad deal, I would like to know more(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[Its Me]

We all have camps like that. We have one that is 70 acres of the some of the most beautiful land around. As was stated earlier, the land was donated to the scouts after the area was logged out around 1920. The parcel sits on two adjoining lakes and is in a very exclusive and fastly developing part of the county. It is now a Cub scout camp with a bigger parcel way out in the hinters land of the council acting as the boy scout camp. Money does not come into this camp to fix the washrooms or other vintage buildings. I would hate to see this centrally located site be replaced with a distant one of lesser quality.

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

I agree with OGE, more information is needed. For example, is this a "merged" council, and/or one that is losing membership? In both those situations, the council must make some tough financial decisions that are not going to make everyone happy. We have one council in New Jersey that through a series of mergers, occupies a territory once divided among 8 or 9 different councils. After the merger, the new council found itself with 11 different camp properties, and much of this council has become increasingly urbanized over the past 30 years, so it may be that membership is not what it once was. Of course, as soon as the council proposed to sell one of the camps (located within the council boundaries) to a developer, there was a huge outcry not only from the "neighbors" of the camp but from 50+ years worth of Scouts and Scouters who had camped there. (After a lot of negotiation, the county parks department agreed to buy and preserve the camp, and contracted its operation to a new group, "Friends of Camp --" which funnily enough is composed mainly of Scouters, and the groups renting campsites on weekends are mainly Scout troops, so it was mainly a win-win solution (except for the county taxpayers I suppose, and renting a site is a bit pricier than when council owned it.))

 

But I digress, the point is that selling a camp is not always the wrong decision.

 

As for the family that once owned the property, based on facts presented, it really does not seem fair to call the $1M payment a "bribe." The family has a valuable interest in that property, specifically the right to recover it if it is no longer used as a Scout camp, and they and the council have agreed that that interest is worth $1M. If they did not agree, the council could say, ok, we will continue to use the camp and then nobody gets anything. Unless the council has already permanently discontinued use of the camp, the family would not be able to simply recover the camp and sell it themselves. As for the donation you mention, are you saying that the family has agreed that the $1M will go back to the council? That would be unusually generous of them. I hope they at least get the biggest plaque as the FOS appreciation dinner, or 1,000 James E. West knots.

 

I understand your distress with the loss of this camp, but unfortunately BSA councils are faced with the same financial pressures everybody else is.

[Fuzzy Bear]

When a camp is deserted and poorly maintained, then it is time for taps. Sell, grab the money and run like a bandit is my first response.

 

On the other hand, emotion has more to do with a camp than, as one SE put it, just being "a mud hole with a barn". I realize any suggestion from a distant stranger means little more than a thin haze on the horizon but here goes anyway. If a camp only has function, then it really is just little more than a mud hole with a barn. If a camp has history, then it is a shrine for the immortals, not really:) History enlarges a camp and gives it the basis for people to begin to share and build their own character because they know and come to realize when a place has profound worth and I don't mean $3.3 million either. By using the word history, I don't necessarily mean ancient history but it is when a place lends itself to personal insight and growth, giving depth just by being there. It is that realization that has people returning because it remains in their hearts for many years and after thousands of miles of separation. A camp with a meaningful history is not sacred but it has great worth for those that shared in it both as a group and especially as an individual.

 

I use this kind of measure to make my personal decisions on the worth of a place and if I cast my lot on returning it to new owners.

(This message has been edited by Fuzzy Bear)

[Be_Prepared]

It is difficult, but sometimes necessary, to consolidate your assets.

 

The Pacific Harbors Council has 4 camps:

 

Camp Hahobas - 600 acres: Boy Scout camp

Camp Thunderbird - 200 acres: Boy Scout camp

Camp Delezenne - 80 acres: day camp, weekend

Camp Kilworth - 25 acres: day camp, weekend

 

As a business decision, it just may not be financially feasible to maintain all 4 camps at the appropriate level - especially one that the council does not own.

[NJCubScouter]

Is the preceding post correct that the camp under discussion is 25 acres? I got the impression from the first post in this thread that we were talking about an "all-purpose" Scout camp that can be used for summer camp, weekends, etc., as the first post said it had sufficient buildings and sites, etc. What kind of council summer camp can you run on 25 acres? The other camps in the council (as reported by BePrepared) are more of the size I would expect. Four camps in one council is a lot (at least where I come from), and it makes sense that they would sell off the smallest one. As I said before, nobody wants to lose a camp, and I sympathize, but sometimes reality has to rear its ugly head.

[SeattlePioneer]

Our district is in the Chief Seattle Council, just north of Pacific Harbor Council that operates Camp Kilworth. Our district has used Camp Killworth the past two years for spring Camporee.

 

Far and away the biggest advantage of Camp Killworth is that it is located close in to both the cities of Seattle and Tacoma.

 

Probably it's biggest disadvantage as a summer camp is lack of a good swimming area and small size.

 

As a place for a troop to camp, it's fine, except that I don't know if the porta potties that were there for camporee were specially brought in for that event.

 

Our troop has also camped at the Pacific Harbor Council's Camp Hahobus, a nice camp but about a ninety mile drive for us, versus twenty milles to Camp Killworth.

 

The Chief Seattle Council sold off it's close in Scout Camp about twenty years ago. It was probably 25 acres or so (relatively small), but had the big advantage of being easy to get to.

 

Now the Council camps are about a sixty mile drive.

 

I hope the decision to sell a camp is a tough one to make for the powers-that-be at the council. It's more important to have a good Scout program than a lot of real estate. Trying to maintain too many camps can mean poor facilities and maintenance as limited resources are stretched.

 

But the advantages of having a close in camp are real. In my district, we are fortunate to have a Kiwanis Club that has as its chief activity maintaining a nice small camp available at no cost for youth groups to use, right in the district. This camp is heavily used.

 

I imagine that after Cub Scouts have their overnight camps, day camps and other activities at this camp for years in a row they get to know it rather too well.

 

By contrast, a city park allows overnight camping. When the Cub Pack I work with did their overnight there it cost them $300 in fees, and there were disadvantages to having a much larger park that was open to the public. They preferred the Kiwanish Club facility, although it's a bit small. The no cost feature was an added benefit.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[concerned_scout66]

SeattlePioneer,

 

I didn't realize that Chief Seattle used the camp for Camporees but that makes lots of sense. As you know, Kilworth is only a few miles South of the border between Chief Seattle and Pacific Harbors. Our own Scout execs somehow managed to omit that usage during their "let's sell Kilworth" pitch almost 1 year ago.

 

Along with others, I personally sent emails and letters to Doug Dillow (Council Exec for Pacific Harbors) and Brad Farmer (Council Exec for Chief Seattle) suggesting that an alliance between the 2 Councils might be beneficial. No response from either. A politely worded "Thank you for your suggestion" would have been enough to satisfy me that these men were actually interested in what the Scouters they depend upon so dearly have to say.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong? Doug did actually manage to send me a request to donate even more money to FOS this year than the $1,600 I already had already donated...

 

Still Concerned

[89camper]

Concerned_Scout has not given the full story on this sale. I have been following this quite diligently and am aware of some of the details involved.

 

The Pacific Harbors Council was merged in the early 1990's from three previous councils: Mt. Rainier Council (Tacoma,WA); Tumwater Area Council (Olympia,WA) and Twin Harbors Council (Aberdeen,WA). These Councils merged because they were all having their difficulties staying financially viable. When the councils merged they kept all the assets of the previous three councils. Until just recently, they operated three service centers, they have recently cut that back to two. The Council has lost nearly 25% of its membership since 2001. It has been running operating defficets for three years running. All of this while facilities have been suffering due to lack of funds to reinvest.

 

A Committee was formed of volunteer Scouters to determine how to help stem the tide of membership loss and red ink and the following plan was devised.

 

1. Close and sell one of the three Council Service Centers. Reinvest the cash from this sale to upgrade the facilities at Camp Delezenne to better accomodate weekend camping for Troops looking for wilderness camping experiences and update the #2 service center in facilities and technology to allow more stock in the store and better unit service.

 

2. Sell Camp Kilworth. This sale will generate millions of dollars to reinvest in other council camps. Namely the profits would be used to build facilities at Camp Hahobas including a dining hall (it currently has a steel pole shelter) and other programatic features. Also, the proceeds would be used to convert Camp Thunderbird into a Cub SCout resident Camp. The Council currently does not have any facilities designed specifically for Cub Scouts. Camp Thunderbird is centrally located within the council borders. It is a 45-50 minute drive from downtown Tacoma, a 15 minute drive from Olympia and a 45 minute drive from Aberdeen. It is well suited to serve Cub Scouts across the council.

 

Most recently, it has been reported in the paper that the council is trying to work with the City of Federal Way to sell it to them to keep as an open space and park.

 

Frankly, I think the Board and our Scout Executive has been quite judious in the use of our council resources. All of this money is being directly reinvested in our camping properties while reducing annual operating expenses.

 

I know that it is difficult to lose a camp, it is never easy. But, this is a good solution to the councils problems. It reduces operating expenses while increasing the level of program which will attract more boys to the program. Who could argue with that?

[Eamonn]

Hi 89camper,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for allowing us to see the other side of the story.

While seeing a place that stirs fond memories go, is never easy. I do hope that improving the other camps will help attract more youth members and in time they will be the guys remembering all the fun that they had at camp.

Eamonn