Grace Ministries Pastor and Republican State Senator District Director Sam Han, going to bat for the map the bar owners want.
Matthew Leslie
“My name is Sam Han, I’m a resident of the City of Fullerton. I’m also here representing Grace Ministries…,” said Samuel “Sam” Han to the Fullerton City Council on the evening of May 17, speaking during a public hearing about which district elections map to send to voters in November. After noting his service as a former Planning Commissioner, he offered a series of observations about the Korean-American community in Fullerton before stating “we don’t believe that the downtown area should just be monopolized by one member.” He continued, eventually offering support for the efforts of Downtown Fullerton’s bar owners to have all five proposed voting districts converge at the intersections of Harbor Blvd. and Chapman or Harbor and Commonwealth. This opinion, supporting the bar owners’ Map # 8, was offered “on behalf of the five thousand members of our church,” a sizable, primarily Korean-American church located on Commonwealth and Brookhurst, where Mr. Han serves as an Associate Pastor.
Grace Ministries…why do it’s 5,000 members care about what Fullerton’s bar owners want?
I’ve transcribed some of Mr. Han’s comments below so readers can try to follow the slender, meandering thread of reasoning he followed to reach his conclusion that a megachurch should take a position on a city’s district elections map, and, in particular, make a specific recommendation to have the district that would contain their church rub up against alcohol-saturated Downtown Fullerton.*
‘…over the years as we’ve worked together with the city council we’ve come to find that you have been receptive, at least to our voice, and some of the needs we have in our community. I will say that the district, unfortunately, creates a situation where you have one city council member who may be more interested in the voices of their particular constituency as opposed to the rest of the city. Koreans don’t just live in one district, we live in multiple districts throughout the city, and we would hope that rest of the members of the city council, even if we’re not a majority in your district, that you would still be attentive to our voices as well. With that being said, as a former planning commissioner myself, I’ve worked though many decisions on the dias, working with business owners downtown…”
And finally…
“I feel the map 8 would actually do a better job at representing a lot of our voices because the downtown area should be considered by all the members.”
We heard the same counterintuitive approach voiced by council candidate Larry Bennett, who replaced Mr. Han in 2014 on Fullerton’s Planning Commission as Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald’s appointee. It didn’t sound any more convincing coming from Mr. Bennett, which is perhaps why Mr. Han took such a long and circuitous path to try to sound persuasive. He didn’t.
Outside the Slidebar: What Would Jesus Drink?
Readers will rightly wonder why two successive Planning Commissioners, both appointed by Ms. Fitzgerald, would rush to support a badly drawn map offered by, of all people, Jeremy Popoff, drummer for the band Lit, and owner of Downtown Fullerton’s Slidebar. The Slidebar is a popular place, but I’m guessing that on any given night it is probably not much populated by very many of the “five thousand” members of the Grace Ministries congregation.
To answer the question of why a megachurch whose congregants certainly don’t all live in Fullerton would send a representative to speak on behalf of a bar owners’ proposed map of the city’s possible election districts, we might refer to Mr. Han’s other gig as District Representative for 68th District Sate Senator Donald P. Wagner, a Republican.
Sam Han didn’t mention his day job…
As noted in our post about Larry Bennett’s support for this ridiculous map, three of Map # 8’s five districts have Republican majorities, leaving only two districts with Democratic Party registrant majorities. Perhaps it just sounded better to have bar owners argue that everyone should “touch” a piece of the action downtown and have a pastor from a megachurch agree with them than it did to have two Republicans appointed by Jennifer Fitzgerald argue for a map that would likely preserve that party’s majority on the Fullerton City Council.
*(Maps #2B and Map # 11 both group GMI with a west-side district that doesn’t reach downtown; Map #10 includes GMI with all of the downtown).
fullertonrag.com 
It would be even more interesting if Fitzgerald voted with the other Republicans on the council.
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The downtown is the heart of the city with issues affecting all Fullertonians which include the revenues to the direction the downtown takes toward alchohol service buisness vs. shopping etc. This is an issue were position on the council will lend more leverage for planning.The title of this article seems offensive to me. I would guess that people from grace ministries are not interested to “rub up against” in culture in the downtown but to have more of a say from their community about the descisions that are made at the heart of our city.
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I’d be willing to bet that most of GMI’s congregation has no idea what their representative is saying in their name.
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Curt, I think it’s more of an elaborate sales job to maintain a Republican majority in the council.
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I never considered to much that party lines affected the politics of Fullerton city council. I wonder in what areas party lines would be a factor in a decision?
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Each major party gives money to their preferred candidates, who also receive endorsements from elected officials from one side or the other, prominently featured on mailers to voters. The map decision may come down to a party line vote.
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It sounds like the writer of this article wants to create a negative narrative about the downtown and the bars. These places all give back to community. At virtually every community event I see Slidebar, Bourbon Street, Heroes, Roscoes, Joes, Matador, and many others. Jack at Heroes has been donating food to schools for years. Not to mention the incredible job Bourbon Street has done for families who are affected by autism and special needs. So maybe the right thing to do is have the downtown represent by the council as a whole. Nevertheless, many of these businesses give back to this immediate community.
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How much are they getting in subsidies compared to what they give back? Do you know that FPD hired four new officers to deal with downtown? Your tax dollars paid for an $8 million parking structure where the bar patrons park. Why are they so desperate to avoid having the surrounding residents elect their own single council member? I’m not saying all the bar owners are bad people (although I can tell you from first hand experience that some are jerks), I’m just saying that their map is a bad idea.
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I can agree that it is a lot of costs associated with downtown but I cannot agree that these operators are bad for our downtown or community. Like I explained in my previous remarks there is a lot giving back and it is very visible. I am confused at why this church leader is being attacked too. He a citizen and church leader. What in the world does he have to gain supporting this map? It seems like a common sense approach to me. What’s the argument against it? or is this just a stunt to bash on the downtown owners. If I owned a place in downtown I would want all council to be involved in the representation and not just one.
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I’m not attacking anyone. Of course Mr. Han is a citizen. I’m questioning why he was sent to say his church supports this map. Read the story to understand the arguments against it. Maybe if you owned a bar downtown you would like this map. Do you live near downtown? If you did, perhaps you might understand why it is a bad idea to split up the residential areas 5 ways.
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But maybe I do like the bars a little less than the five thousand members of Grace Ministries do.
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Also the person who wrote this article doesn’t know that the picture in this article is actually the side of Bourbon Street and not Slidebar. This leads me to believe it’s either politically motivated or a personal matter against Jeremy and the Slidebar. We get it you don’t like the bars but this is a mapping issue.
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It’s right next to Slidebar. The crowd tends to stand stand around back there between the businesses. My issue is not with bars, it’s with splitting up the downtown neighborhoods. Why do you think they are so desperate to do that?
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I don’t interpret this as them being desperate. I see it as them wanting to be part of the process. I spoke with a few of them the other day and many of them found out about the mapping late in the game. Their response was they are busy operating their restaurants/bars at the hours these meetings take place. Jeremy has taken the lead and many of them support him. If it were anyone but Jeremy presenting map 8 it would be treated like the rest of the maps without the drama. There are many maps that are good. His is not to far from any of them except the map 8 downtown is proposed to be represented by all council. Whats wrong with that? isn’t 5 better then 1?
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If they wanted to be part of the process, why did they wait until the very end of it?
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No, it’s just a bad map because the districts are eccentrically shaped for an unworthy purpose. I’d oppose it no matter who presented it.
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FYI, Slidebar continues to operate illegally without a CUP, as well as breaking the city’s sound ordinance on a daily basis.
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They all leave their doors open past 10 pm, no matter how many times you tell their security guards to shut them because they are out of CUP compliance. Do the cops ever say anything to them about it? No!
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What nonsense to complain about “one person monopolizing downtown”. The idea behind separating the representation is to give each area of Fullerton someone that will give that ONE area his or her whole attention and act in the best interest of all those they were elected to represent. The notion of divvying up an area does not benefit anyone except those with gratuitous expectations. If the council votes on this map, they can expect more legal complaints. As for GMI, they’re sitting on a sweetheart, albeit BS, deal from this council as it is. I wish the speaker (pastor) and his guy sitting behind him would stop disguising their concerns as religious.
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[…] However, it is not our business to tell a church what to do, although we may well look askance – as when a Grace Ministries’ representative stood up at a public hearing and claimed his church’… […]
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