Scouts strike it rich

The Boy Scouts are about to join the exclusive fraternity of local landowners who’ve struck it rich. The nonprofit intends to sell its 1,120-acre Mount Potosi camp, which sits about 30 miles southwest of downtown Las Vegas. The campground is worth at least $100 million as a residential site, and would be worth significantly more if it were rezoned to allow more than the current standard of one home per acre.

Taxpayers have reason to be perturbed about the looming sale because the land once belonged to the public. The Bureau of Land Management gave the site to the Scouts under a land grant in 1958. That deal stipulated that the land be used for recreational purposes for 25 years. When the pact expired in 1983, the land was conveyed to the Scouts, making them the owners.

In 1959, the BLM changed its land grant policies, requiring that ownership revert back to the federal government when those using property decide to vacate it.

“It was a pretty routine transaction with the federal government at the time,” said Philip Bevins, Scout executive for the Las Vegas Area Council.

This deal certainly doesn’t rise to the level of mismanagement achieved by local governments in their recent land giveaways. No one knew back in 1958 that Las Vegas would become the global tourism destination it is today, and no one in the Scouts imagined they could one day collect a nine-figure check from the sale of the property.

However, some parties, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy, have indicated they’d like the government to be the Scouts’ buyer. They envision using proceeds from a future BLM land auction to acquire the site and bring it under federal control.

That’s a bad idea. The Scouts are selling the property because practically no one uses it. Mr. Bevins said it does not offer the “high mountain experience” campers want on a weekend away from the Las Vegas heat.

And returning the land to public ownership would create new oversight and maintenance costs for taxpayers.

The federal government owns too much land in Clark County already — about 90 percent of the total acreage. That’s why the BLM holds public auctions every six months. Auctioning land around Las Vegas to buy more unremarkable property near the valley does nothing to help bring new acreage onto Clark County’s property tax rolls.

Federal agencies and the Nature Conservancy should let a private buyer make productive use of the land.