Lawsuit seeks halt to Scouts’ sale talk

A group calling itself Camp Easton Forever has filed a lawsuit to halt the possible sale of Camp Easton, a popular Boy Scouts camp on the shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The suit, filed recently in Kootenai County District Court, seeks a permanent injunction that would prevent any future sale of the property.

Camp Easton Forever is a nonprofit group created last month in response to announced plans by the Inland Northwest Council of Boy Scouts of America to explore selling Camp Easton to a development company, in exchange for property elsewhere on the lake.

The Inland Northwest council board will decide at some point if the option of building a new and safer Scout camp justifies selling Camp Easton, Scouting officials have said.

No date has been set for that review and a board vote on the sale, Scout council CEO Tim McCandless said.

News of the land swap offer emerged in August. Opponents say the land for Camp Easton was donated in 1929 to the Panhandle Council of the Boy Scouts and was meant to remain a camp forever.

Some neighbors of Camp Easton also oppose the sale of the camp to Discover Land Co., the developer that built the Gozzer Ranch housing development and golf course on the lake.

Discovery has proposed building a new camp on 270 acres on the other side of the lake, along undeveloped land at Sunup Bay.

Opponents say the camp’s history and waterfront qualities cannot be replaced.

The lawsuit argues that the camp’s original deed includes an implied commitment to keep Camp Easton a Scout facility forever, said Jeff Crandall, a Coeur d’Alene attorney, who is also scoutmaster of Troop 219, based in North Idaho.

“We want the leaders of (the Inland Northwest Council) to halt the possible sale and take it off the table,” Crandall said.

To support that claim, the suit cites language from the 1929 meeting notes that occurred when landowner F.W. Fitze first arranged a donation of 132 acres along the lake as a home for Camp Easton.

While those notes state Fitze wanted the camp used for Scouting “in perpetuity,” Crandall acknowledged the actual deed didn’t include those terms. “Our assertion is that the language in the deed was intended to include that (obligation),” Crandall said.

McCandless said the council’s board would not comment on the specific claims in the lawsuit.

But he noted, “It’s disappointing that some would question the board’s commitment to our mission of serving youth.”

He added that the council board would be “irresponsible if we at least did not explore the possibility of finding a new camp.”

Stacey Cowles, publisher of The Spokesman-Review, is a board member of the Inland Northwest Council of Boy Scouts of America.