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Gay, Lesbian Leaders Unhappy After Meeting About Boy Scout Headquarters

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Mayor Nutter met privately Wednesday with members of Philadelphia's gay and lesbian community who are unhappy with his decision to cut a deal with the local Boy Scouts over their city-owned headquarters.

The closed-door meeting was a chance for the LGBT community to voice directly to the mayor their displeasure with his offer to sell the Scouts Headquarters at 22nd and Winter Streets to the Scouts for $500,000.

Among those at the meeting, and leaving dissatisfied, was developer Mel Heifetz.

"We would like to have a settlement that clearly has the building with an organization that doesn't discriminate. Settling it with them remaining in that building is not a settlement."

Heifetz is offering to buy the building at twice the price. Nutter's spokesman Mark McDonald described the meeting as cordial and frank.

"The Mayor's position has not changed in any way."

Nutter made the offer after the Scouts sued and won a case against the city in federal court last summer.

Reported by Mike Dunn, KYW Newsradio

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