PGN:

City attorneys and the local Boy Scouts chapter have filed a joint motion in Common Pleas Court asking that the eviction proceedings against the Scouts be postponed indefinitely until the Scouts’ federal lawsuit is resolved.

Some activists question the move, noting that an indefinite stay could result in the Boy Scouts continuing to discriminate in a city building for many more years while appeals are heard on the federal — then possibly state — level.

A hearing on the 69-page motion,which will be open to the public, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Aug. 1 in City Hall Courtroom 246, with Judge Mark I. Bernstein presiding.

Arthur Kaplan, an LGBT activist who’s been working on the eviction issue for five years, expressed reservations about the joint motion.

“I find it disquieting,” Kaplan said. “This joint motion for a stay opens the door to years of delays. It gives the Scouts an incentive to take every possible appeal on the federal level and, potentially, proceedings and a new set of appeals on the state level.”

The Scouts’ Cradle of Liberty Council is headquartered in a city-owned building at 22nd and Winter streets, near the Ben Franklin Parkway.

But the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance, as amended in 1982, bans antigay bias in a variety of venues, including city-owned buildings.

After years of pressure from LGBT activists, including Kaplan, city attorneys filed eviction papers against the Scouts on June 2.

However, 10 days earlier, on May 23, the Scouts filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that the city was violating their state and federal constitutional rights by threatening to evict them.

Stacey L. Sobel, executive director of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, concurred with Kaplan.

“My greatest concern is that this litigation will go on for a significant period of time while the Boy Scouts are getting a free ride and continue to discriminate,” Sobel said.

City Solicitor Shelley R. Smith defended the joint motion, noting that the city is doing its best to resolve the matter by having the Scouts either pay fair-market rent or leave the Parkway building as soon as possible, or stop discriminating.

“There are two separate but interdependent claims arising from the same set of facts, proceeding in two different courts,” Smith said. “Given the litigation realities that accompany that procedural posture, we think the most practical solution is to stay the state-court eviction pending resolution of the federal case that seeks to prevent it from happening.”

She conceded that the case could drag on for years, but noted that the city also has preserved its right to ask for back-rent from the Scouts from June 1, 2008, onward.

She also didn’t rule out the possiblity of settling the dispute out of court to avoid contentious litigation.

The city wants the Scouts to pay $546 for each day they occupy the building after June 1, when they were supposed to begin paying $200,000 in annual rent or leave the building.

The joint motion also indicates that the Scouts won’t object to the city filing a counter-claim in federal court seeking the Scouts’ eviction and back-rental payments.

Jason P. Gosselin, an attorney for the Scouts, denied using legal tactics to delay eviction and to help the Scouts stay in the building.

“That’s absolutely not what we’re trying to do,” Gosselin said. “We want this case decided as quickly as possible.”