COEUR d'ALENE - A Boy Scouts official is rejecting a key fact presented in a lawsuit over a Boy Scouts camp on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

The lawsuit recently filed by Camp Easton Forever, Inc. is wrong, stated Scout Executive Tim McCandless with the Inland Northwest Council of Boy Scouts, in reporting that the deed for the camp property must be used in perpetuity as a boys' camp.

No such condition is spelled out in the deed, McCandless wrote in an email.

"The deed states, 'This property is donated and given to the Idaho Panhandle Council, Boy Scouts of America by F.W. Fitze and Lumira Fitze, his wife, for use of the Boy Scouts of America,'" he pointed out.

But attorney Jeff Crandall, representing the nonprofit, said he disagrees with McCandless.

That sentence in the deed may not use the exact word "perpetuity," Crandall said, but it still reflects the intent of the property to be permanently used as a camp.

"It's not as clear as we would expect to see in today's terms, but in 1929 it was," Crandall said.

He can prove the intent of the deed's creators, he added. He has obtained minutes from a 1929 meeting between Fitze and the IPC, in which Fitze announced he would gift the property with the understanding it would be used perpetually as a boys' camp.

"That's the specific language used," Crandall said. "My argument is in 1929, it was very clear what they intended."

The attorney recognizes that it will be up to a judge to make the final determination, he said.

Camp Easton Forever, Inc. filed a lawsuit against the INC and Council Endowment Properties, LLC last month in an effort to prevent the proposed sale of the 420-acre camp to developer Discovery Land Company.

The lawsuit states that when Fitze had donated property for the camp, "his only wish was that the gift be accepted with the understanding that the property be used perpetually as a camp for boys."

It also states that the Fitzes donated the property "pursuant to a deed of real property that contains an expressed restriction that the property be used in perpetuity as a camp for boys."

The suit requests a permanent injunction preventing sale of the property for any purpose besides a boys' camp, and for an order to prohibit negotiations on the current proposed sale.

It also requests a declaratory judgment stating that selling the camp to Discovery violates the terms of the Easton deed.