City delays decision on Cradle agreement release
The Nutter administration has postponed a decision on releasing a copy of its settlement agreement with the BSA Cradle of Liberty Council until June 13.
Last week, PGN filed a Right-to-Know Law request for a copy of the agreement.
The settlement ends a five-year legal fight by Cradle to occupy a city-owned facility near the Ben Franklin Parkway.
Cradle will leave the facility by June 30, and a retail store will vacate the premises by Oct. 31. In return, Cradle will receive $825,000 in tax dollars for improvements Cradle reportedly made to the building.
But all of the settlement’s details weren’t specified in the press release.
A city law-department attorney said May 13 the department needed 30 days to decide if it would release the agreemnt.
The city sought Cradle’s eviction because the organization won’t accept LGBT participants, nor pay fair-market rent.
Attempts underway to settle benefits case
Attempts are being made to settle a federal lawsuit involving spousal benefits allegedly denied to a local gay couple.
Bryce Ginther and Kit Kineef were married in New York in May 2012. But Ginther’s employer, ArcelorMittal USA, allegedly refuses to recognize Kineef as an eligible beneficiary of its health plan.
The men filed a lawsuit in February, alleging violations of federal law.
“ArcelorMittal is working collaboratively with the parties involved to resolve the matter,” stated company spokesperson Mary Beth Holdford in a May 7 email to PGN.
Attorneys for the men had no comment about Holdford’s statement at presstime.
U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O’Neill Jr. recently granted ArcelorMittal an extension until May 16 to reply to the allegations.
Ginther is an industrial electrician at the Conshohocken steel mill.
Conshy case continues
James D. Schneller, who’s challenging the legality of Conshohocken’s LGBT-inclusive antibias ordinance, is seeking monetary damages from borough officials for suing him.
Schneller is co-founder of the anti-LGBT group Philadelphia Metro Task Force, and has embroiled Conshohocken in litigation about the ordinance for almost two years.
Borough officials filed suit against Schneller in September, requesting about $18,000 for legal fees allegedly incurred while defending the ordinance.
In a counterclaim filed May 1, Schneller contends that borough officials sued him “with malice” to intimidate LGBT opponents. Schneller also contends the suit caused him ailments such as nausea, heart palpitations, shortness or breath, loss of appetite and reduced ability to exercise.
His counterclaim seeks in excess of $50,000 and an investigation by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and/or the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office into whether the borough violated criminal laws when suing him.
Michael J. Savona, an attorney for the borough, called Schneller’s motion “frivolous and meritless.”
Schneller had no comment for this story.
His challenge of Conshohocken’s ordinance remains pending in state Commonwealth Court.
— Tim Cwiek