by KYW's Mike Dunn

The City of Philadelphia is about one month away from what could become a nasty showdown between the Nutter administration and local Boy Scouts. The group is being told to renounce the national Scouts policy on gays or leave its city-owned headquarters. 

Philadelphia scouts have, for decades, used an elegant city-owned building at 22nd and Winter Streets, just off the Parkway, rent free. But Mayor Nutter, like Mayor Street before him, says the national Boy Scouts' policy on the admission of gays is discriminatory. 

So city solicitor Shelley Smith (in file photo at right) says that, come June 1st, the local Scouts council must renounce the national policy, start paying rent, or leave:

"We're not looking for the fight about it. But we will do what we have to do to defend the city's policies on this issue."

The local scouts organization, the Cradle of Liberty Council, is hoping to find a compromise, according to spokesman Jeff Jubelier:

"We don't have intentions of leaving the building. We understand the city's position. We are working internally to try to come up with an alternative."

So the June 1st deadline is fast approaching, and national attention on the showdown could intensify.  Solicitor Smith understands that it could get ugly if the scouts are evicted:

"As ugly as it may seem to some that we are taking action against an organization that people view as nobly as they view the Boy Scouts, we think that their policy is equally ugly."

Jubelier says the Cradle of Liberty Council has never discriminated, but that it cannot renounce the national organization's policies without sacrificing the local group's future.