Scouts look to sell

The Boy Scouts have lived up to their motto: Always "be prepared."

In this case, the nonprofit Boy Scouts of America Las Vegas Area Council is prepared to bring in more than $100 million for selling its camp on Mount Potosi, property that it got practically for free from the federal government under a land grant arrangement 24 years ago.

Now the U.S. Forest Service is scrambling to find a way to buy the land back before the local Boy Scouts council sells it to one or more of some 16 interested land investment and development parties, including an undisclosed potential buyer who made an unsolicited offer last year.

Managers of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, which surrounds the Scouts' 1,120-acre tract, fear that wildfires like the one sparked by lightning Wednesday, 2 miles southeast of the camp, will be a constant, costly problem for public agencies to deal with if developers acquire the land and build homes on it.

"It becomes very problematic during a wildfire," Stephanie Phillips, deputy forest supervisor for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said in an interview this week.

Other issues include use of sparse groundwater supplies to support a rural community and unauthorized trails that would radiate from it into Forest Service lands, she said.

The rural-zoned tract, known as the Spencer W. Kimball Scout Reservation, is located off Route 160, about 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, at an elevation of 5,800 feet near Potosi Pass.

Philip Bevins, Scout executive for the Las Vegas Area Council, confirmed that the council's board of directors voted unanimously in November to "put the property into play" after an unsolicited offer was made for it last year.

"We haven't set a firm price on it. In today's market, what is the property really worth? I would imagine in the next 60 to 90 days we'll determine where to go," he said.

On Wednesday, he declined to say exactly how much the offer was for but acknowledged that it was for more than $100,000 an acre, which would put the price at more than $112 million.

A public lands realty specialist and a private housing research firm operator said an estimate on the property's value couldn't be provided because of the research required. But other sources familiar with the Potosi property have said that the value would increase greatly if the parcel were rezoned to accommodate more than one home per acre, which is what current zoning would allow.

Phillips said officials from the Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy have met with the Boys Scouts' representatives and understand it would take "lots of money" to put the land back in public ownership.

"If the offer is $200 million and we have $80 million we could not buy the land outright in a year," she said, referring to revenue that could be generated from the government's next sale under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act. The act allows the sale of public land in the Las Vegas Valley to buy environmentally sensitive lands elsewhere in the state.

Mauricia Baca, The Nature Conservancy's Southern Nevada project director, said her organization's interest "is that it be retained in an environmentally pristine state as best possible."

"We're not an anti-development organization per se. We try to look at win-win scenarios. At the same time, there is a realization that we have some very valuable ecological resources, so those need to be safeguarded," Baca said Thursday.

She said The Nature Conservancy could play a role in nominating the Potosi property for funding from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, but the organization itself does not have the money to purchase it.

Bevins said a land grant allowed the local Scout group to occupy the land in 1958 under a 25-year recreational-use arrangement that expired in 1983, conveying the land to the Scouts as owners.

"It was a pretty routine transaction with the federal government," Bevins said.

At the time, the land was administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

One of four "patents" that spelled out the deal for a traditional nominal fee, typically $1, from the Boy Scouts of America's Boulder Dam Area Council, as it was called then, was signed by Rose M. Beall, chief of the BLM's Patents Section, on Oct. 6, 1958.

Nearly a year after the arrangement was forged, the BLM changed its policy, requiring that land revert to public ownership in cases where it's not being used as intended.

But the Scouts' deal with a "no reversion" clause was already in effect and remained in place through 1983, allowing them to take possession of the land.

Phillips said, "Once the reversionary clause was written in, it was too late to go back to the Boy Scouts and say, 'Whoops, we didn't mean that (the 1958 pact).' ... Normally if you vacate land, it goes back to the federal government."

Bevins said the decision to consider selling the Boy Scouts' land was driven by the fact that in recent years, "very few of our Scouts use it, particularly in the summer."

He estimated that typically 5 percent of the 33,000 Scouts in the Las Vegas Area Council use the Potosi camp.

"Scouts are choosing to go to California, Utah and Arizona to get the high mountain experience, which we can't offer on that property," he said.

Howard Bulloch, president of the Las Vegas Area Council, said he thinks "there's a lot of wisdom" in selling the Potosi property "because so few Scouts are using it."

He said the property, too, has great potential for development because it's "close to town and 20 degrees cooler" in the summer than much of the Las Vegas Valley.

"I think it will be a wonderful opportunity ... if somebody develops it," Bulloch said.

Bevins said the board has decided that if the land is sold, the assets will be reinvested, first in the Scouts' 1,000-acre Camp Del Webb High Adventure Base near Kolob Reservoir north of Zion National Park in Southern Utah.

Remaining assets would be used for the following:

• Develop a day camp facility next to the council's office at Warm Springs and Paradise roads.

• Buy one or two smaller camping properties for weekend use within an hour's drive of the Las Vegas Valley.

• Obtain a couple of satellite offices to serve the community better and significantly increase the ratio of staff to Scouts.

"Whatever is left will be put into an endowment to ensure future generations have quality scouting programs and facilities," Bevins said.

He said the Las Vegas Area Council has had "a series of meetings" with the U.S. Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy's staff regarding purchase of the Potosi property "and left the invitation on the table for them to come in any time."

An act of Congress in 1988 changed the boundaries of some public lands in the Spring Mountains, taking what was BLM land and putting it under control of the U.S. Forest Service, including much of the area around the Potosi Boy Scout camp.

Bevins said the site has "sufficient water rights" to groundwater, which is used for camp facilities. They include 70 troop campsites, latrines, washstands, two shower buildings, a swimming pool, a well and water storage system.

"We view this as a success for the community and a success for the Scouts to take an underutilized asset and put it to use," he said.

In 2005, the Las Vegas Area Council sold another one of its holdings that more than 20 years ago had been public land.

The council sold 15 acres of riverfront property south of Laughlin for $920,000 to the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

The water authority obtained the parcel, known as Griffith Canoe Base, to meet its species protection obligations on the Lower Colorado River. It is being preserved as natural habitat for the flannelmouth sucker fish, the desert pocketmouse and a dozen bird species.

Like the Potosi camp, the canoe base was a victim of declining use and had been closed for about 10 years.

Bevins said proceeds from the sale of the canoe base were used for capital improvements at other facilities the Boy Scouts' Las Vegas Area Council owns and operates.