cfwrite HTNL to txt file with weird characters

charset="windows-1252" charset="utf-8"

Any reason why you use "windows-1252"? I expected you to use UTF-8 charset everywhere. 

In fact, I would suggest that you:

1.  Open /bin/jvm.config in an editor and add the flag -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 to java.args.
2.  Then restart ColdFusion

As a last resort (if all of the above fails), you could use the class org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils to convert HTML entities. For example:

<!--- Lets make the file, and put the first row of Column headings in --->
<cffile action="WRITE" file="#f_dir##f_name#" output="CamperType, FullName, LDName, MCNName, CamperID, Photo" addnewline="Yes" charset="utf-8">

<cfloop query="camperList">
<cfset outputRowData = "#camperTypeName#, #camperFullName#, #Ldname#, #mcnName#, #camperID#, #photoIDFile#">
	<cffile action="APPEND" file="#f_dir##f_name#" output="#convertHTMLEntity(outputRowData)#" addnewline="Yes" charset="utf-8">
	<!--- End the loop here --->
</cfloop>

<br>

<cfoutput>
<a href="reportDownload.cfm?FileName=#absolutefilepath#">Here is the file</a>
</cfoutput>

<cffunction name="convertHTMLEntity" returntype="String">
	<cfargument name="inputString" required="yes">

	<cfset var conversionObject = createObject("java", "org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils") />
	
	<cfreturn conversionObject.unescapeHTML(arguments.inputString)>

</cffunction>