‘But God led me here. He picked this spot.’ : --Rev. Oka Mussau : Samoan Church There to Stay

When God told the Rev. Oka Muasau that the home on Farmstead Avenue next to the Pomona Freeway in Hacienda Heights would be a propitious site for a church, he somehow forgot to inform the Samoan preacher of the reception that awaited him.

“We like to talk and laugh and have a good time, but the neighbors didn’t understand our culture. They didn’t understand our people, and there were many fights,” said Muasau, the 44-year-old founder of the First Samoan Assembly of God Church in Hacienda Heights. “But God led me here. He picked this spot out. We would never think of leaving.”

Instead, after a five-year feud between the 100-member church and the community carried out in the courts, the regional Planning Commission and the county Board of Supervisors, it is Muasau’s neighbors who have pulled up stakes for a quieter version of suburbia.

The neighbors’ fight ended in defeat two weeks ago when the Board of Supervisors denied a request by the Hacienda Heights Improvement Assn. to revoke a conditional use permit allowing the church to operate in a residential area.

But while refusing to close the church, supervisors agreed with an earlier Planning Commission finding that the church was a nuisance to the 10 surrounding homeowners in the 1300 block of Farmstead Avenue, a narrow and unpaved street that dead-ends at the Pomona Freeway. As a result, the church and its offices, on a small residential lot, must now operate under a formal set of restrictions, including a ban on bingo, rummage sales and daylong celebrations.

Although it appears to be over, the feud has left a residue of bitterness in this unincorporated east San Gabriel Valley community of 60,000. Three families on Farmstead Avenue have moved out in the last several months after complaining for years about noise, access problems and Sunday services at the church that began in the early morning and concluded with a luau at night. In an interview, an attorney representing the church renewed charges that community opposition was fueled by racism. He pointed to the improvement association’s recent and bitter fight against the building of a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights as evidence that the largely white, middle-class population here resents Asians and other ethnic groups moving into the area.

Community leaders angrily deny the charge of racism, while expressing concern that the addition of churches and new businesses has altered the landscape of their once bucolic community.

Colorful Shirts

Muasau, a large man with a deep belly laugh and a wardrobe full of colorful Polynesian-style shirts that he wears whenever he’s away from the pulpit, says his new neighbors and the church get along fine. Two homeowners on the block seemed to agree. But Muasau said he is not completely happy with the Board of Supervisors’ recent decision either. He believes that the operating restrictions are too severe and infringe on the freedom of parishioners to worship in his church, which is incorporated but not affiliated with other Assembly of God churches.

As an example, the preacher complained about a county-im posed restriction that limits his weeknight religious instruction to fewer than 20 people.

“It really bothers me because I have more than that number who want to attend Bible study,” said Muasau, who now lives with his wife and six children in a home purchased from one of his former neighbors. “All our parishioners should be allowed to attend Bible study.”

The feud between the church and homeowners began shortly after Muasau, a radio operator for American Samoa before he had a “born again” experience in 1969 and moved to the United States, purchased the small home on Farmstead Avenue in 1979 and began holding services in his living room. Shortly after, the two sides began exchanging heated words. It wasn’t long before sheriff’s deputies were summoned to mediate disputes, including fisticuffs that broke out between a female parishioner and a female homeowner one Sunday two years ago. The parishioner had dumped some trash in the homeowner’s garbage can.

Racial Intolerance Blamed

Donald Schindler, attorney for the church, said he believes that racial prejudice motivated the Hacienda Heights Improvement Assn. to oppose the church. Schindler said racial intolerance also sparked the association’s opposition to the construction of the $5-million Buddhist temple complex on Hacienda Boulevard. After a year of bickering, in June, 1983, the Board of Supervisors approved the construction of a revised version of the temple, and the site is now being graded.

“This problem really stems from the large influx of different cultures into the Hacienda Heights area,” Schindler said. “It was once largely a white, middle- to upper-class community. Like Alhambra and Monterey Park, its whole surface is changing with Hispanics and Orientals moving in. I think the old-line residents are really fighting against this inevitable trend.”

Statistics bear out the change.

According to the 1980 census, whites made up 78.3% of Hacienda Heights’ overall population, with the remainder divided almost evenly between Asians and Latinos. In 1984, figures showed a drop of 1% in the white population, while Latinos and Asians gained a percentage point. Projections for the unincorporated area for 1989 show a slow but continued drop in the white population and an accompanying rise in the percentages of Asians and Latinos.

Racial Charge Disputed

Association board members, including the attorney who represented the church’s neighbors, argue that racism is not a factor in the feud with the church. They claim that the issue of race was first invoked by the opposition to gain political support.

“That seed was planted to get away from the objective,” said Wilfred Briesemeister, past president of the improvement association and attorney for the neighbors. “I took personal offense to it and so did many others. It’s a cheap shot to label our opposition to the temple and the church racial. All you have to do is look at the facts.”

In April, 1980, neighbors reported to the Planning Commission that Muasau had illegally converted his home into a church. They complained that Farmstead Avenue, which was nothing more than a dirt road at the time, was unsuited for the traffic and parking problems inevitably created by church-goers. They said that Sunday services lasted all day and often ended with the Samoans roasting a pig in the backyard of the church. Neighbors passed around a petition and got the support of the Hacienda Heights Improvement Assn., the most powerful of the self-appointed watchdog groups in the unincorporated area.

Use Permit Granted

Undaunted, Muasau applied for and was granted a conditional use permit by the Planning Commission. He was also given approval to expand the home into a full-fledged church. But before construction of an adjoining chapel and a 20-car parking lot began, the improvement association took its fight to Pomona Superior Court, where it tried to enjoin the construction. More than a dozen declarations were filed with the court by neighbors of the church and other Hacienda Heights residents, some of them complaining of menacing looks that came from a group of church elders, several of whom are over six feet tall and weigh more than 300 pounds.

“Some of the declarations were filed by people who didn’t even live close to the church,” Schindler said. “They talked of mountains of men passing bricks in colorful Hawaiian shirts and giving neighbors very threatening looks. Samoans are big, formidable looking people and I think the neighbors unnecessarily feared them from the start.”

“We just use our strength to do the work of God,” Muasau said. “We’re not out to hurt anybody.”

The court denied the associations’ request for an injunction in June, 1983, just about the time the community’s fight to stop construction of the Buddhist temple was also ending in defeat. Briesemeister and other association members said opposition to the church and the temple was based on the physical problems created by both facilities. They said they feared the temple project, located prominently on a hillside in the 3300 block of South Hacienda Boulevard, would burden county sewage facilities, cause traffic congestion and be an eyesore because of the size and height of the structure.

Red Chinese Roof

They also complained that the temple, which will provide living quarters for 40 Buddhist monks, would spoil the skyline with a bright red Chinese roof and would attract transients and tourists. The temple site is four miles south of the Samoan church.

“The people of Hacienda Heights have fought the good fight and have literally lost them all,” said Sharon Pluth, an association board member who lives next to the proposed temple. “I just can’t help but wonder what message this sends out to our young children, who are already apathetic when it comes to community involvement.”

Pluth, a housewife who has lived in Hacienda Heights for 25 years, lamented the changes to the community that have accompanied projects such as the temple and the expansion of the Samoan church. “I remember when two ditches formed the borders of Hacienda Boulevard and you had to drive three miles to get to the market. The community has grown so much. We’re not happy with the traffic situation, that’s for sure.”

Richard Frazier of the regional Planning Commission said the restrictions imposed on the Samoan church have helped ease tensions in the neighborhood. Sheriff’s deputies have not received any complaints regarding the church in six months, according to a spokesman for Supervisor Pete Schabarum, whose district includes Hacienda Heights.

‘Awfully Awkward Site’

“The main problem with the church is that it’s located in an awfully awkward site. It would take a damn conservative church to get along with its neighbors in that physical situation,” Frazier said. “And the Samoans have a way of doing things that is just different from the average Hacienda Heights resident. By nature, they’re a very outgoing, gregarious bunch of people.

In an effort to avoid further fighting, Muasau said he will probably not challenge the county’s restrictions. Then he pointed to his large girth and said it was difficult to tell Samoans not to conclude their Sunday worship with a celebration.

“We don’t roast pigs every day,” he said. “But we’d still like to have one when there’s a wedding or a special occasion.”