BSA Selling Off Camps

[Eagle1993]

https://apnews.com/article/politics-congress-sexual-abuse-9e991d917edc0f10b17e586b8f8259d2

[RememberSchiff]

“I am emphasizing to my colleagues that there is a clear urgency here,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who thinks there may be federal funds available to buy Scout properties. “We have no time to waste.”

Sen. Blumenthal has said he’s looking into the possible use of money from the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund to help in the purchase of the Connecticut camp and the other Boy Scout properties for sale across the nation. Individual states decide which projects to pay for with that money.

Sen. Blumenthal said selling camps to developers goes against the tenants of an organization that is supposed to teach environmental stewardship.

“Unfortunately, local Boy Scout councils are selling to the highest bidder,” he said. “So, I think it is a national challenge, but it goes to the core of what scouting means and the ethos and ethic of scouting, which they may be betraying.”

 

[ThenNow]

Why didn’t someone do this proactively? Several Scouters were talking around this idea a year (or so) ago.

While I honor and understand this man’s concern, if we took this direction most churches, schools, man youth programs/venues and millions of homes would be shuttered.

Joe, a victim who did not want his last name used because his family is unaware of his experience, was abused by his scout master starting at the age of 8 in the 1970s at a Connecticut camp that was sold years ago to make way for housing on Candlewood Lake. He’s not sure he wants people camping on land where scouts were once abused.

“I don’t have those warm feelings about those places,” he said. “It’s almost like ‘Poltergeist.’ Do you want your house on land where those things happened? So, I don’t know what to do with those places.”

[RememberSchiff]

Mark Twain said "Buy Land. They're not making any more."

Senator Blumenthal's comment regarding the existing National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund (establlished in 1964) appears on the mark.

LWCF project map list: https://lwcf.tplgis.org/mappast/

On August 4, 2020, the Great American Outdoors Act became law, further funding the LWCF.

Edited June 6, 2022 by RememberSchiff
add map link