A Bradenton, Florida Boy Scout Camp has a developer looking to purchase it, and this has raised concerns amongst locals. The question arises does history trump practicality when considering selling the property, and why not sell it and try to determine a new place to relocate the camp?
If I was in charge of the Boy Scouts in Bradenton, I would explain that the opportunity for such a windfall to fund the organization and relocate the camp to another location. The property was originally in the middle of nowhere. That was why its use as a Boy Scout camp was logical. Now that the real world has come around the camp, why not create a endowment for the scouts and relocate the camp?
A development boom has made the 165-acre property along the Manatee River extremely valuable _ so much so that Boy Scout officials are thinking of selling to a homebuilder.
Mendez said that with so many other activities competing for boys’ attention, losing the 77-year-old camp _ used for generations for camping, hiking, swimming, canoeing and other outdoor fun _ would deal a major blow to scouting in the region.
“I can’t see any way that scouting the way we know will still be here,” said Mendez, a 50-year-old pediatrician who also serves as camp physician. “If you stay active, that’s what attracts the kids.”
Some local Scout boosters are suing to block a sale, in a dispute that has played out in various forms elsewhere around the nation as suburbia spreads into the countryside.
In Beaumont, Texas, a financially strapped local Boy Scout council sold off one of its two camps in 2001, raising the ire of many who had visited over its 70 years. In Mahwah, N.J., in 2002, the Trust for Public Lands stepped in to rescue the 750-acre Camp Glen Gray from development. Other situations have arisen in Arizona, Michigan and Washington. via Chron.com
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