12/21/2007
By Momo Chang, STAFF WRITER
The Oakland Tribune (California, USA)
OAKLAND — A California Superior Court ruled Tuesday that the Oakland Cambodian Buddhist Society Temple should never have merged with a corporate, centralized temple in Massachusetts.
"Finally, justice prevailed and we got our temple back," said Christina Fam, daughter-in-law of the temple's now-deceased abbot.
The temple's board of directors conducted a membership vote in June 2004 leading to the merger, but it never stated that the Massachusetts-based International Community Khmer Buddhist Monks Center would essentially take over the Oakland temple, according to the judge's ruling.
The abbot, Sam Son and three monks were locked out of their own temple in 2004. They started a new one — the Oakland Cambodian Buddhist Temple — across the street in the same East Oakland neighborhood, followed by many of their supporters.
"The abbot was told he could no longer be the abbot and he couldn't perform any ceremonies or do anything," Fam said about the temple coup. "This was to the abbot's surprise and the members' surprise."
Several board members allegedly had grudges against some of the elder monks and the abbot. They accused the monks of engaging in inappropriate activities, such as viewing pornography on the Internet and playing cards, allegations that Fam says were false, but were used as an excuse to bring on the merger.
The abbot, Son, passed away July 2005 in the midst of the internal disputes.
"Unfortunately, the abbot couldn't handle the stressful situation," Fam said in tears on the phone Thursday. "He was already frail and had a heart condition. He was in emotional distress."
The original temple was founded in 1983 by Son and incorporated as a nonprofit in 1986. Before the temple was transferred out of local control, it had a membership of 600 and was central to the Cambodian community in Oakland, many who are refugees.
The temple offered language and citizenship classes and workshops on immigration issues and cultural events, according to the plaintiff's lawyer, David Sternfeld.
"We're hoping to bring the temple back into the community and provide the services it had in the past," he said.
G. Robert Woodfin, lawyer to the defendants, said he is still reviewing the decision and declined to comment.
"Finally, justice prevailed and we got our temple back," said Christina Fam, daughter-in-law of the temple's now-deceased abbot.
The temple's board of directors conducted a membership vote in June 2004 leading to the merger, but it never stated that the Massachusetts-based International Community Khmer Buddhist Monks Center would essentially take over the Oakland temple, according to the judge's ruling.
The abbot, Sam Son and three monks were locked out of their own temple in 2004. They started a new one — the Oakland Cambodian Buddhist Temple — across the street in the same East Oakland neighborhood, followed by many of their supporters.
"The abbot was told he could no longer be the abbot and he couldn't perform any ceremonies or do anything," Fam said about the temple coup. "This was to the abbot's surprise and the members' surprise."
Several board members allegedly had grudges against some of the elder monks and the abbot. They accused the monks of engaging in inappropriate activities, such as viewing pornography on the Internet and playing cards, allegations that Fam says were false, but were used as an excuse to bring on the merger.
The abbot, Son, passed away July 2005 in the midst of the internal disputes.
"Unfortunately, the abbot couldn't handle the stressful situation," Fam said in tears on the phone Thursday. "He was already frail and had a heart condition. He was in emotional distress."
The original temple was founded in 1983 by Son and incorporated as a nonprofit in 1986. Before the temple was transferred out of local control, it had a membership of 600 and was central to the Cambodian community in Oakland, many who are refugees.
The temple offered language and citizenship classes and workshops on immigration issues and cultural events, according to the plaintiff's lawyer, David Sternfeld.
"We're hoping to bring the temple back into the community and provide the services it had in the past," he said.
G. Robert Woodfin, lawyer to the defendants, said he is still reviewing the decision and declined to comment.
6 comments:
I cannot believe it, Khmer temple from one state took over another Khmer temple in another state. To serve what purposes? Motivated by money? Our country was taken over by Vietnam while in foreign land we fight over to control the temple. Sorry to see khmers weakened because of the internal un-ending fighting. Khmer race is over now.
Ingnorance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry to say but quite a number of the Khmer temples here in the US are a bunch of money leeching businesses with greedy people in charge of the temple's monetary funds. Not all of them, but some number of them have become corrupted. Even some of the monks are corrupted.
In our community, a few years back, one of the monks kept on using temple funds, along with the people in charge of the money, to spend at casinos. And then another monk bought a brand new BMW.
I swear, this was so disgraceful to our community because we always poured in money.
To all of you. Christian Churches work the same way, only they know how to conduct business. Its time Buddhist temples start learning how to leech money the right way and use that money to help the Khmer community. Several Thai temples are also trying to take over temples in SOCAL.
I hope Khmer temples reach out to to help their communities and not just take money from the Communities and keep it to enrich those who managed the temples.
The same thing happen in Fresno, California.
In the past the temple belong to local people. Any Khmer organizations or political groups can used the hall for meetings or events if they could not find any place to do it. Now the temple and monks belong to CPP. No one can do anything except CPP. About 10 years ago Tap Vong inserted a young monk from Cambodia to control this temple and to spy on Fresno people who have any activities or movements against CPP. Now all monks and board members has strong connection with Tap Vong.
Recently this young monk said good buy to the monkhood and emerged himself into the society by married a young khmer girl. He bought diamond ring for his bride, pay the Cost of Mother's Milk for $10,000, and pay everything for the wedding.
After married he took his wife to visit his boss, Tap Vong, in Phnom Penh. His target right now is to dig deeper into any khmer political activities in Fresno and California.
Board Members of the temple are corrupted. The temple property is under the name of a members who had refinanced the temple and took the money to do business in Cambodia.
People in Fresno could not do anything because the temple has a lot of money (some from Tap Vong???) to pay for a good lawyer.
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