Boy scouts face split

Next week's vote on a Boy Scouts of America council merger is expected to seal the fate of the troubled Old Baldy Council.

Financial woes, which have plagued the council in recent years, have forced the Ontario-based Old Baldy Council to seek neighboring support. Last month, boards from Old Baldy, San Gabriel Valley and the California Inland Empire councils agreed to a merger that would split the 84-year-old council in two.

"Old Baldy has had problems financing programs in recent years," said Bob Booker, former scout executive who has been working on the merger. "We're just not generating enough money to operate as we should be."

Membership of the council will vote on the merger starting next week.

The Old Baldy Council, with more than 7,000 youth members, serves the eastern portion of Los Angeles County and the western portion of San Bernardino County.

If the merger is approved, members from Los Angeles County would join the San Gabriel Valley Council. Members from San Bernardino County, which total about 70 percent of Old Baldy's membership, would join the Redlands-based California Inland Empire Council.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the United Way had dealt major blows to Old Baldy in recent years.

The council has spent a significant amount of money fighting litigation filed ACLU in 2003, which accused the council of fraudulently accepting federal funds. A year later, the United Way pulled out its annual funding of $150,000. "My feeling is, if we didn't have this lawsuit, this turn toward negativity, we wouldn't lose so many troops last year," said Larry E. Files, Navajo Lodge adviser for the Order of the Arrow, a service organization within the council.

According to Files, the council lost more than 2,000 members last year.

The Ontario-based Navajo Lodge, an honor society that promotes camping, is deemed the oldest lodge west of the Mississippi. Files, who became a member in 1970, said it will be hard for him to see the lodge dissolve, partly because he had put so much of what he called "sweat equity" into it.

Files, who said he would be out of a job if the merger goes forward, said many boys are scared of the future.

"Some don't know what to do; they're on a fence," Files said. "They are thinking that they'll have to start over again and lose all their hard work at the scout ranch."

According to Booker, scout units will not notice much change if the consolidation is approved. Booker expects to have a scout center and shop located in the Inland Valley. Some troops will be assigned new numbers and will have to change their council patch.

A merger would let California Inland Empire Council serve all of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, making it the 20th largest council in the country in terms of scouting units.

Doug McDonald, assistant scout executive of California Inland Empire Council, said such consolidations have been going on in the last decade.

"Smaller councils that have been around for a long time haven't been able to provide a full range of services for their constituency," McDonald said.

Consolidation will be a healthy change for scouting, he added.

But some involved with the Old Baldy Council say a merger would eliminate the hometown feel if it becomes absorbed with the Pasadena and Redlands offices.

Larry Bacon, a scout master from Old Baldy Council, remains ambivalent.

"When Old Baldy folds, other councils get a little stronger. This is a good thing," Bacon said. "But one of the oldest councils in California is going to go away like it's nothing. I think it's sad that it's happening, but overall it's better."

The Old Baldy and California Inland Empire council representatives will vote April 20. The San Gabriel Valley Council will vote April 27.