Court passes on Boy Scout land sale deal to Federal Way
STEVE MAYNARD; The News Tribune
The sale of a Boy Scout camp overlooking Puget Sound to the City of Federal Way is dead.
The state Supreme Court has denied the Boy Scouts’ request to review a Court of Appeals ruling that had blocked the sale of Camp Kilworth. The city wanted to turn the 25 acres into a public park.
“It’s dead, it’s over,” said Perrin Walker, attorney for the Pacific Harbors Council of the Boy Scouts of America. “We will enjoy Camp Kilworth for perpetuity.”
A five-justice panel of the Supreme Court on Sept. 8 unanimously denied the Scouts’ request to review the appellate court ruling. That decision said the deed to Camp Kilworth requires that the land be used for teaching about Scouting, or else it reverts to its two original trusts. The state attorney general’s office had opposed a Supreme Court review, saying it didn’t meet the criteria.
Bob Casey, attorney for both trusts, declined comment Monday.
The city agreed nearly four years ago to buy the camp for $3 million. The purchase from the Pacific Harbors Council, which serves more than 17,000 Scouts in nine counties, would have enabled the Scouts to add a swimming pool and a dining hall at their larger camps west of Olympia and near Belfair.
Federal Way Mayor Jack Dovey said Monday he’s disappointed the city won’t be able to preserve the property as a park and that the Scouts won’t get money to improve their other camps.
“It’s a travesty,” Dovey said.
The city was awarded $1.1 million from the Legislature and $1.9 million in grants from the state and King County to buy the camp. Now it will never see those dollars, city attorney Pat Richardson said.
In addition, the city had set aside more than $2 million of its own money to operate and improve the property.
Tacoma businessman William Kilworth and his first wife, Augusta Kilworth, deeded the camp site to the Boy Scouts on Feb. 28, 1934.
The Scouts will continue to run day and overnight camps at Camp Kilworth, said Tim Garber, scout executive for the Pacific Harbors Council, based in Tacoma. But the Scouts don’t have the money for capital campaign to improve the other two camps, he said.
Still, Garber said, “It’s hard to be disappointed when you have a great asset like Camp Kilworth.”
In February, the Court of Appeals, Division Two, overturned a ruling by Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Larkin. Ruling favorably on a lawsuit filed by the Boy Scouts, Larkin removed the deed’s provision that the land must revert to its trusts if not used for scouting. In his ruling in September 2007, Larkin said the sale of the property would still support the Scouts and thus fulfill the primary purpose of the Kilworth donation.
Larkin took into account the urbanization of the area surrounding the camp in the decades since the Kilworths gave up the land. The Scouts would have continued to use the property if it had been sold to the city.
But the Court of Appeals sided with the two trusts, one named for William Kilworth and the other for his second wife, Florence Kilworth. Trustees had appealed Larkin’s ruling.
The appeals court said the issue wasn’t administering a trust, as Larkin ruled, but upholding the deed.
Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
