Scouters’ Mountain Taskforce
Finance and Valuation Subcommittee Report

Numerous meetings occurred with a variety people and groups. Visits included site developers, Clackamas County Planning Department and other local agencies. These meetings better explained the Damascus/Boring Concept Plan and the potential future of the area surrounding Scouters' Mountain.

This committee recommended to the council Executive Committee on January 5, 2005 that we hire a consultant to protect the council's interests at Scouters' Mountain. The council contracted with WRG Design for this role. WRG visited Scouters Mountain, attended several of the Damascus / Boring Concept Advisory group meetings, met with the City of Happy Valley and consulted with taskforce volunteers and staff.

The City of Happy Valley, Clackamas County and Metro have a strong interest in part of the property for a park and would be very interested in doing so in partnership with Scouting.

To determine whether or not it might even be feasible for the council to consider the sale of the property, the committee worked to determine the value of the property and the cost to relocate the programs and facilities. In this effort, the committee surveyed a variety of developers and real estate professionals to determine the potential value of the property. Responses indicate that with adequate zoning the development value of the property would fall in the $200,000+ per acre range, giving the property a potential value of up to 40 million dollars.

To determine the replacement costs a survey of realtors, timber companies and others has determined that finding replacement properties is possible. A number of suitable sites have been found in the Sandy area and the possible expanded use of the 21 other existing council owned properties is also an option.

An analysis of development and construction costs determined an approximate cost to replace facilities. Initial rough estimates are that this could be done for 10 - 12 million dollars. In addition, 10 million added to an endowment fund would produce $600,000 in earnings a year to add to camp maintenance. Eight million added to an endowment fund would produce $400,000 each year for camp capital improvements. 10 million added to endowment fund would produce $600,000 a year to replace funds lost from the United Way of Columbia - Willamette, Hood County and other organizations. This would allow the Council to share the Scouting program to a greater number of families in our communities. Additional endowment fund could be created for Camp Staff Scholarships and for marketing and advertising the Scouting program.

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