The Fayette Tribune, Oak Hill, W.Va.

Local News

August 20, 2012

Call renewed for tax-exempt status for Scouts

By Mannix Porterfield Register-Herald Reporter

CHARLESTON — A leading Boy Scout official made a renewed pitch Tuesday for a Constitutional amendment that would open up the sprawling Fayette County complex to other activities without putting its tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

Last winter, the Senate agreed to let West Virginia voters decide the matter but the proposal withered in the House of Delegates as time ran out in the session.

A projected 40,000 visitors are anticipated next summer at The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in Glen Jean for a Scout Jamboree.

“We’re not looking to have an open exemption that would allow the Boy Scouts to run this facility as some kind of an amusement park year-round to generate revenues,” Charleston attorney Steve McGowan told a legislative panel.

“We’re looking to use it occasionally in a manner consistent with the Boy Scouts’ vision and mission of the property.”

McGowan, an attorney with the firm of Steptoe & Johnson, is a past chairman, president and vice president of the Buckskin Council, Boy Scouts of America.

Accompanying him to the Finance Subcommittee C was retired Navy Admiral Dan McCarthy, in charge of all operations at The Summit.

He is a former deputy chief of operations for logistics for the Navy and recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, highest honor bestowed to volunteer leaders, and the father of Eagle Scouts.

McGowan told the panel that some $160 million already has been poured into the Fayette County complex and that 500 people work daily there on two shifts.

One year from now, some $325 million will have been invested into the facility. The work entails some 83 miles of underground utilities and the removal of 6.5 million cubic yards of dirt in the Glen Jean area.

Under both the Constitution and the State Code, the attorney pointed out, which employ nearly identical language, real property used by a charitable group is exempt from taxation.

Parameters outlined in a 1944 Supreme Court case are narrowly defined, he told lawmakers.

“If the Boy Scouts were to lease to a local promoter who wanted to run a rock concert after Bridge Day, we would not be able to do that without losing our tax exempt status for real property,” McGowan said.

“It would not be a charitable use. We would have to lease it for profit.”

Already, he noted, a number of communities in the region have inquired about using an 80,000-seat “amphitheater on grass” but legally they are denied unless the use is for charity.

Nor could a couple use the facility for a wedding, McGowan pointed out.

Without changing the Constitution, he said, the Scouts are forbidden to open up the facility to anyone save for a charitable group using for its intended purpose, and then the lease can only be employed to cover overhead costs.

“That for the Boy Scouts of America is a significant problem in being able to open up this facility,” McGowan said.

Since property taxes aren’t paid now, he said, there is no net revenue loss anyway for either the state or counties.

McGowan said any Constitutional amendment would have “clear and unambiguous and clearly defined parameters.”

“There will be substantial times outside when the Scouts are at the facility where the opportunity for community use does exist,” he said.

 

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