Reported back in November from the Washington Post, the city of Philadelphia was going to raise the rent the Boy Scouts were going to pay from $1 paid from 1928 to a market value of $200,000.
“While we respect the right of the Boy Scouts to prohibit participation in its activities by homosexuals,” Solicitor, Romulo Diaz said, “we will not subsidize that discrimination by passing on the costs to the people of Philadelphia.”
I haven’t found anything else out about this, except that the new Mayor is continuing with this action. Of course I have found dozens of wacky blogs with gay-bashing comments about how Philly is full of this fag kind of thing…and how great the boy scouts are and the republicans are and country singers are…guess they don’t have gay kids. Guess they aren’t gay. Guess they don’t have a heart…or a brain. I’d love to have them pick up their teeth with broken fingers.
I did find one comment on a site that sounded legitimate so I thought I’d add it below:
T. W. Says on phillymag.com
Yes, the Scouts were offered the property, they funded and built the building that stands on it. They then turned it over to the city with the understanding that they had use of the building in perpetuity. That is the actual legal arrangement. One of two things will most likely happen at this point.
1. They will vacate and consolidate into their other property.
2. They will challenge the eviction once it is served in court using the historical arrangement that goes back to the 1920’s.
3. Another tenant may lease the building, obtain subleasing rights in the lease, and then turn around and sublease the building, or at least part of it, back to the Scouts.
I should note that this was not a unique event, that during the 1920’s and through the ’30’s all over the country similar arrangements were worked out. Land donated, Scouts (girls and boys by the way) built a building on it for their use, the city or county got use of the rest of the property. There have been lawsuits over attempts to evict Scouts from these properties (mostly because the civic government wanted to build or expand civic building on the site). Each time the courts have upheld the historical arrangement and the civic groups have had to give in and some how accommodate the Scouts.
The local accommodation in our town was to provide a new property for the scouts, but the city paid the full tab of a new building for the Scouts and cost of relocation.
So the legal system is on the Scout side on this one. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Personally…I agree. It will be interesting to see what happens.
I did notice that all these hate blogs blamed Mayor Nutter and Philadelphia and the gays for this dilemma. They quickly say that kicking out the Boy Scouts will put the kids out on the streets where they will become criminals.
It is the Boy Scouts decision to not exclude homosexuals…therefore it will pay full rent, just like other private organizations. Blame them…
There are other very fine organizations that cater to youth in Philadelphia. There are even some that help gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth in Philadelphia, unlike the Boy Scouts. Want an example? How about The Attic Youth Organization?
And if the people writing and commenting on these hate-blogs were Boy Scouts?…I really picture people in other uniforms in my mind…
