Muslims Report 2 Hate Calls

The heat over a planned Muslim school in Rancho Santa Margarita intensified Friday as an Islamic organization filed a formal complaint over two anonymous hate calls.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles said the callers told the Islamic group: “Go back to the desert. Go back home. This place is only for Christians and Jews. Stay out of Rancho Santa Margarita.”

The calls complicate an already thorny issue awaiting the official creation in January of the new city of Rancho Santa Margarita. Earlier this week, county planning officials shelved the proposal of the Islamic Center of Southern California for building a New Horizon elementary school in the new city.

Opposition to the project initially centered on worries about traffic and parking, but Magdy Eletreby, the Islamic Center’s chairman, said community concern about Muslims living in the neighborhood has been lurking underneath the opposition. The hate calls, he said, bring that issue to the surface.

“We’re still prepared to work with the community to foster understanding between different people,” Eletreby said. “We believe that this kind of thing originates from ignorance.”

The Muslim council filed its complaint with the Orange County Human Relations Commission. In an effort to stop such hate from mushrooming into violence, the county agency said it will discuss the situation at a press conference Monday morning. The Islamic Center and the Muslim council also will attend.

“It’s important to look at these hate calls in the proper context,” said Rusty Kennedy, the commission’s executive director.

“This isn’t the majority of the neighbors. This is an individual or several individuals who are reaching out and spewing their hateful and ignorant opinions,” he said. “It’s not the feeling of the community, and it doesn’t stand for Orange County.”

Neil Blais, one of five residents elected to the new city council, agreed.

“Every community has their bad eggs,” Blais said. “It’s a shame because it causes lots of problems.”

Since 1989, the county’s Muslim community has grown from 50,000 to 200,000. Many live in the Garden Grove area, where the Islamic center has its only New Horizon school in the county. Islamic leaders want to build a New Horizon school in Rancho Santa Margarita to give South County Muslims a school closer to home.

But building plans face an uncertain future.

On Wednesday, the county planning commission voted 2 to 1 to delay a decision on the New Horizon school until January. The effect was to turn the matter over to Rancho Santa Margarita, where residents overwhelmingly voted last week to create a new city.

Members of the Islamic Center said that the delay will probably kill the project because most city council members don’t support it. Three of the incoming council members wrote to county planning officials, asking them to table any action until the city could take over.

“There was no reason whatsoever to delay the discussion until January,” Eletreby said. “It was extremely unfair and unjust.”

But Blais said the delay isn’t an effort to block the Muslim school. Voters, he said, are concerned about traffic and want the city, not the county, to take control of the decision-making process.