Last month Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. handed down a ruling stating that the city’s sweetheart lease of Balboa Park land to the Boy Scouts of America was unconstitutional. This week the city has at last taken its first step in cutting ties with the discriminatory organization by voting not to appeal the court’s decision.

“The vote was in significant support for this decision,” Third District City Councilmember Toni Atkins told the Gay and Lesbian Times this week. “I can tell you I feel very good about it. I feel very good about the outcome, the discussion and I think it was the right thing to do.”

While Atkins could not comment on the specifics of what was discussed during closed-door meetings on Sept. 2, she did say, “I feel absolute reversal today. A judge has ruled in favor of my personal position. I think the evidence is there, a court has looked at it and indicated that the city of San Diego should not have supported a new lease that basically supports discrimination against a group of people.”

The council has also ordered City Attorney Casey Gwinn to enter into negotiations with the plaintiffs in the case.

“We’re glad to sit down and talk,” said Dale Kelly Bankhead of the ACLU in reaction to the news. “We wish the City Attorney had sat down and talked with us four years ago when we first sent a letter to him and to Mayor Golding detailing the constitutional problems with the lease. They never responded to it for over a year and that’s why we had to go to federal court. It’s good that we are talking, but that does not absolve the city for their lack of action earlier.”

A spotlight was put on the four-year-old lawsuit two years ago when the city council voted to renew the boy scouts lease for another 25 years in a 6-3 vote. According to Jones, that lease was in violation of state and federal constitutions, and, in a summary judgment, he said, “It is clear that the Boy Scouts of America’s strongly held private, discriminatory beliefs are at odds with values requiring tolerance and inclusion in the public realm.”

While Jones did rule against the Balboa Park lease, he also said more information would be needed to make a ruling on the scouts lease on Fiesta Island, moving that issue to trial. The boy scouts have already filed what is called an interlocutory appeal, an appeal on a single issue in the middle of an ongoing case. The council’s vote this week means that they will be staying out of such an appeal, but it does not preclude them from getting involved in the case when it goes to trial regarding Fiesta Island.

“The likelihood of the boy scouts succeeding is close to nil,” Bankhead said of the appeal. “The fact that the city decided not to join them in this rather pointless cause, while it is good news, is not monumental news.”

The goal of the lawsuit, to get the boy scouts out of Balboa Park, has yet to be realized.

“I think they need to terminate the Balboa [Park] lease,” said M.E. Stephens, the local attorney who represented the plaintiffs in the case against the city. ”I think they need to be aggressive and say it’s a discriminatory organization and we had no business entering into this new lease. By the judge’s order, which Judge Dick Murphy needs to respect, the lease needs to be terminated.”

The Center, who helped organize the strong showing of opposition to the lease renewal two years ago, is welcoming the news, saying that the Council is getting a second chance to stand up and do the right thing.

“San Diego needs to join cities all over the nation who have said that, while the Supreme Court may give private groups like the Boy Scouts the right to have discriminatory practices and philosophies, subsidizing those practices cannot be forced upon the taxpayers,” said Delores Jacobs, the executive director of The Center. “Private clubs that discriminate need to be financed by private dollars given by the private citizens that wish to support such practices. It’s a simple principle, really, and if the group in front of City Councils was the Klu Klux Klan, we wouldn’t have had this extended debate.”

GLBT leaders are now urging citizens to contact their council representatives and ask them to vote against entering into any appeals with the boy scouts from this point forward, and to immediately terminate the Scouts’ lease in Balboa Park.