Boy Scouts To Sell 1 Camp In Hudson Valley

DUTCHESS COUNTY, NY — The board of the Greater Hudson Valley Council of the Boy Scouts said it will be selling one of its camps in the Hudson Valley.

In a letter to the scouting community posted Saturday on its website, the board said it made "the difficult decision" to sell Camp Nooteeming, which is located in Salt Point.

"This was a heart-wrenching decision," the board said, "but necessary to ensure that Scouting in the Hudson/Delaware Valleys will grow and have a sustainable, bright future."

In June, the council announced that Cushman & Wakefield had been retained to sell three campgrounds, located in Stony Point in Rockland County, Putnam Valley in Putnam County and Salt Point in Dutchess County.

The council said the bankruptcy task force spent the last several months analyzing different scenarios to raise the funds needed to pay the multi-million dollar obligation to the Victims Compensation Trust for abuse victims.

Market information gathered from the announced sale, along with analyzing past budgets, endowment reports and future expenses, led the task force to recommend selling Camp Nooteeming.

The board said selling the one camp "was the best way to put the bankruptcy behind us without incurring burdensome debt."

The sale, amount of which was not announced, will "allow us to focus on the mission of Scouting moving forward, to offer the opportunity to any youth in our area to experience Scouting and learn the values of the Scout Oath and Law," the board said.

"Scouting isn't about the ground a youth walks on," the board said," it is about how that youth carries themselves and leads others in the future."

The board also did not announced the name of the purchaser.

Camp has Nooteeming is a 272-acre site at 22-169 Camp Nooteeming Road in Salt Point. The site has road and utility access to most of the property and has numerous structures, including a four-season visitor center, a dining center that can hold 175 people and multiple cabins. There is a lake with waterfront areas, an artificial turf regulation-size soccer field, a swimming pool and a softball field. The site is zone rural agricultural, so any development would need to be compatible with the natural limitations of the land.

The two sites not being sold were Camp Bullowa, a 313-acre site in Stony Point in Rockland and Durland Scout Reservation, a 1,385-acre site in Putnam Valley.

News that Camp Bullowa was not being sold was greeted favorably by Rockland County Executive Ed Day.

He called the decision "a victory" for Rockland's scouts.

"We look forward to the continuation of the Scouting program at Camp Bullowa which will greatly benefit future generations and will continue to support GHVC's work within Rockland County," Day said.

There is a big "if" concerning whether the two other camps will not be sold.

Richard Stockton, the scout executive of the council, told the Journal News that it is the organization's hope that no other camp sales will be required, but that will not be determined for certain until the bankruptcy court makes its ruling.

The scouting council is going to have to contribute more than $6.3 million to the victims compensation trust.