Under the settlement between the city and ACLU, the Boy Scouts can remain at the 18-acre Camp Balboa site until all legal appeals are completed.
Officials of the Boy Scouts' Desert Pacific Council issued a statement expressing disappointment in the city's decision and the amount of the legal fees.
George Davidson, an attorney with the New York firm of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed, said the Boy Scouts would fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Along with a statement, the Boy Scouts released a letter from Eric Treene, special counsel for religious discrimination in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. Treene expressed interest in intervening on behalf of the Scouts to protect their 1st Amendment rights.
The lease, dating to World War II, had been set to expire in 2007, but hundreds of Scouts' supporters packed the council chambers in 2001 to argue in favor of renewal. In exchange for a 25-year renewal, the Boy Scouts promised to make $1.7 million in improvements to the site.
The Boy Scouts also lease city property on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay; the ACLU believes the group also should be ousted from that site.
A Girl Scout lease on property at Balboa Park is not involved in the case because that group has no policies involving homosexuality or religion, attorneys said.
