Scout Land Still Up For Sale

By Nicole R. Grubbs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR 
August 16, 2003

The Boy Scouts may have won its fight with a developer's family to sell Southeast Side land that the developer donated, but it hasn't been able to sell the property. An official with the Catalina Council of the Boy Scouts of America said he was unable to provide any details about the status of the 288 acres in the Rincon Valley . But a property owner near the Scout land said the group has not succeeded in selling it.

"I suspect they are going to have trouble," said Ron Hilliard, a member of the X9 Ranch Owners' Association. "They had visions of selling it for an awful lot of money." Henry W. Jackson, the developer of X9 Ranch, gave four parcels - 420 acres - of land to the Boy Scouts before he died in 1986. The donation included deed restrictions that prohibited the Scouts from selling the land.

The Boy Scouts said they had two camps in the Tucson area and wanted to sell the land to benefit scouting programs. The Catalina Council oversees all Scouting in Southern Arizona . Some X9 Ranch property owners were opposed to the Boy Scouts' proposal to sell the land because they believed development of the land would lower their property values. They sued the association's board of directors because the board had tried to come up with a deal to allow the sale of the land. Anne Jackson Miller, Jackson 's daughter, also opposed the Scouts' plan to sell the land because she believed selling the land violated the deed restrictions set by her father.

In a settlement reached in March 2002, Jackson 's family agreed to stop fighting the Scouts' plan to sell the property if the Scouts would give some of it to the family to help pay their legal costs. Miller said her family had spent more than $200,000 fighting the Scouts since 1997.

Miller said she has found a buyer for the 132 acres the Scouts gave to the family. Although the sale is not finalized, she believes it will be complete in a few months. She would not say how much she is selling the land for or who is buying it. She said she wants the land to be preserved and hopes only one home will be built on it.

Hilliard said the Boy Scouts' land was annexed into the association in the spring. The Scouts sought the annexation because they "thought they could sell it for more," he said. Hilliard said the association members who approved the annexation thought they would have more control over the land if it was part of the association. Bart Gentry, assistant scout executive with the Catalina Council, said he doesn't know enough about the issue to comment further.

"The only thing I understand is that the parties in the transaction have reached amenable agreements," he said. 

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