Garden Grove Officials Deny Bigotry Charges : Council Votes 3-2 Against Korean Church

At an emotional meeting that lasted until 1 a.m., the Garden Grove City Council voted 3 to 2 Wednesday morning not to allow a Korean evangelical church to build a new facility in a residential area on Lampson Avenue.

Council members finally voted after hearing about four hours of testimony in which neighbors complained that the church would create noise and traffic congestion, and members of the Korean community charged that objections to the proposed church were rooted in bigotry.

“I have lived here over 25 years,” Andrew Kim, a vice president of the Korean-American Assn. of Orange County who attended the meeting, said Wednesday. “I witnessed and I experienced a great deal of bigotry. . . . Last night was no exception.”

He charged that those who opposed the church did so not because of noise or traffic but to keep Koreans out of their neighborhood.

But council members, even one who voted for the church, insisted that race was not a factor in the residents’ opposition to the church.

“I really think that people just wanted the residential nature of the neighborhood to remain the same, and I think it was that simple,” said Councilman Raymond T. Littrell, who voted for the church along with Mayor J. Tilman Williams.

The Rev. John K. Huh, pastor of the Orange Korean Evangelical Church, has been seeking permission to build a new church in the 11700 block of Lampson Avenue for the past nine months. After residents complained, the city Planning Commission rejected the project last December, even though the city’s engineer said the project would not create too much traffic in the neighborhood.

Huh appealed the decision to the City Council, which deadlocked on a 2-2 vote, with one member abstaining. Before they voted again, council members asked Huh to commission another study of the project’s impact on neighborhood traffic and noise.

Huh commissioned the study, at a price of $5,600. The study found that the church would push noise in the area over the acceptable level. The study recommended building a 10-foot wall around the church. City law, however, does not allow walls to be built higher than 7 feet, which is why some council members say they voted against the church.

“I didn’t think the church should go in there, no matter what kind of church,” said Councilman W.E. (Walt) Donovan, who voted against the project. “I’ll tell you it was a very difficult, difficult decision. I finally decided that the impact on the neighborhood was just too much.”

Huh, while hesitating to attribute opposition to his church to anti-Korean sentiment, said he thought his congregation had not been treated impartially.

“We complied with all city municipal codes and requirements,” he said. “We expected to be treated fairly, but we were treated unfairly.”

Councilman Milton Krieger, who joined Donovan and Robert F. Dinsen in voting against the church, admitted that some residents said “insensitive” things that might be construed as racist. But he denied that residents were opposing the church out of anti-Korean sentiment.

“This isn’t an issue that to me has anything to do with who in the heck is going in there,” Krieger said.

“I’m telling you this is the wrong issue to claim that Garden Grove is being unfair on, because no church would have gotten approval there, no church.”