A Lomita mosque\u2019s plan for a new center on its property has been rejected by the City Council, prompting the mosque\u2019s congregants to allege that there was anti-Muslim bias at play.<\/p>\n
But Lomita Mayor Don Suminaga said the four council members \u2013 one recused himself \u2013 who unanimously voted Monday against the expansion project of the Islamic Center of South Bay did so because of neighbors’ concerns and the potential increased traffic. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it boils down to too big of a project for that area,\u201d Suminaga said. <\/p>\n
A traffic study, however, concluded that there would be no additional traffic on the road because the proposed prayer area \u2013 which the study noted was \u201cthe primary criteria used in determining traffic impact\u201d \u2013 would be about the same size as the current prayer area.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A staff report from the city\u2019s community development director recommended approval, and the city\u00a0 planning commission last year recommended that the council approve the project. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re solely looking at the traffic study, maybe it\u2019s OK,\u201d Suminaga said, adding that he had a \u201cfeeling that they would be bringing more people in.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some neighbors of the mosque spoke against the project at Monday\u2019s meeting and were countered by mosque supporters from Lomita and surrounding cities who urged the council to approve it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems to us that the City Council members, before they heard the four-hour testimony from our people, they had already made up their minds,\u201d said Iraj Ershaghi, a founding member of the Islamic center. \u201cThis was such a total blow to our expectations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ershaghi, an engineering professor at USC, said some of the comments made by neighbors opposed to the project had an anti-Muslim undertone. \u201cThe tone was that, \u2018You don\u2019t even exist,\u2019 \u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Lomita Muslim community bought the property, located on a residential street, in 1985 and over the years has purchased adjacent properties and used the existing nine structures for prayer and community services, Ershaghi said. <\/p>\n
The proposed project called for tearing down the smaller buildings and consolidated them into one two-story structure with classrooms, administrative offices, bigger bathrooms and a prayer area. Ershaghi estimated that 150 to 200 people attend Friday prayers. <\/p>\n
"The idea was not to attract more people,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea was to have classrooms. We don\u2019t have classrooms; we don\u2019t have bathrooms. The idea was to make it convenient to park in the lot and not in the street.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mosque leaders plan to meet with city officials Thursday to discuss future options.<\/p>\n
— Raja Abdulrahim <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Lomita mosque\u2019s plan for a new center on its property has been rejected by the City Council, prompting the mosque\u2019s congregants to allege that there was anti-Muslim bias at play. But Lomita Mayor Don Suminaga said the four council members \u2013 one recused himself \u2013 who unanimously voted Monday against the expansion project of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}