Televangelist's Arrival Divides a Small Town

Los Angeles Times/August 21, 1999
By John M. Glionna

TAYLORSVILLE, Calif.--He blew into town a year ago. Locals first saw him bicycling the back roads of the rural Indian Valley, often accompanied by a bevy of women in skimpy shorts and thong bikinis, his entourage followed by a cameraman recording his every move.

Then, in May, irascible Los Angeles televangelist Dr. Gene Scott bought a small farm just outside this tiny lumber town and quickly introduced the in-your-face style that has ruffled many residents. Scott began recording locals on their property as he videotaped himself about town and flashing money in what some called an attempt to buy friends.

The arrival of the irreverent televangelist known as the shock jock of TV ministry has rocked Taylorsville to its core. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor, prompted the closure of the town's only diner and may have forever altered the close-knit feel that this community of 350 once took for granted.

"I thought I knew this place, thought I knew the people who lived here," said Bruce Ruffner, a retired schoolteacher and chairman of the town's history museum. "But you get a different view of your community when you see something like this. For me, I've seen a very narrow-minded and bigoted place I didn't see before. And that sincerely troubles me."

Differences of Opinion

A cadre of informal community leaders--including the owner of the town's only market and the woman who dispenses mail at the post office window--have welcomed Scott with open arms, explaining that having the leader of a worldwide television ministry as a resident will be good for business. They say Scott's recent $17,000 contribution to a local museum and his hints about an upcoming donation to the cash-strapped Fire Department don't hurt, either.

For others, it's as though the devil himself has come to Taylorsville. Locals talk of Scott's eclectic broadcasts, which can be seen 24 hours a day on satellite TV as far away as South Africa and the British West Indies, or at various times on many public access channels in the United States. Cigar in hand, his face puffed with rage, Scott often sneers at viewers, mixing high-voltage Scripture with profanity-laced monologues, ordering his flock to donate with his famous bark: "Get on the telephone!"

The tactics work. From his headquarters in Los Angeles, Scott has been known to quickly raise millions from a congregation that his Web site claims exceeds 50,000 families worldwide, including 15,000 in the Los Angeles area.

Scott's detractors in Taylorsville resent the way he duns viewers for donations, noting that his big tips at local eateries come from the preacher's "naive" followers, people who can least afford it. "I want 300 to give $1,000 by June 30 to humiliate Satan's efforts to destroy us," Scott commands in a Web site missive circulating around town. "I also want 700 to commit to $10,000 by Christmas."

Some say Scott has videotaped his program from his farm and fear he'll soon begin to regularly broadcast from their town. Still others are offended by Scott's army of scantily clad followers.

"I don't wave when I see him," admits Lillian Mitchell, a Taylorsville resident since 1991. "And I'm usually not like that. I used to be so proud to tell people I lived in Taylorsville. But now I'd rather not say that I live in the same town as Dr. Gene Scott."

Added her husband, Mark Mitchell: "You get sick of hearing him say on his show 'You owe me the money. You know you owe me the money. God knows you owe me the money. So send me the . . . money.' "

The 70-year-old Scott refuses all interviews. But his spokesman calls the criticism unfounded.

"The next thing you know, these people are going to be saying that Gene Scott has dead babies under his pulpit and that he's the father of 42 illegitimate children," said Scott's spokesman, Mark Travis. "It's all the work of small-minded people dreaming up something nefarious, whispering that the Bhagwan has moved into town."

Travis said Scott bought the farm to grow hay for his 300 horses in Kentucky and the San Gabriel Valley and that he has no plans to live there year-round or relocate his church headquarters. He said Scott plans to divide his time between Taylorsville and his other properties, returning to Los Angeles each week for Sunday services.

Still, Scott has ties to the area: He spent time as a boy at nearby Lake Almanor and wrote a college paper, now displayed at the Taylorsville museum, on the geology of the Indian Valley.

"It's just so ridiculous," Travis said. "Everywhere he goes, people have different perceptions of Gene Scott. Some people love him, some people detest him. And this local-yokel little town is no different."

Located about 240 miles northeast of San Francisco in sparsely populated Plumas County, Taylorsville has nary a stop sign, let alone a traffic light. There's no local police force, no mayor and only five businesses. Most residents are retirees from the mining and lumber industries that established the unincorporated burg back in 1852. Philanthropy and Lavish Lifestyle The town's socializing goes on outside the post office and general store, both housed in a rustic turn-of-the-century brick building with a wooden front porch where a community bulletin board advertises the fire station's "spaghetti feed" and Labor Day raffle.

First prize: a hunting rifle.

It's on the post office porch that talk of Scott goes on. Many locals had heard of the preacher before he showed up. They know he is pastor of his own Los Angeles University Cathedral, holding services in the historic United Artists Theater in downtown, which his church spent $2 million to renovate.

They've heard of Scott's lavish lifestyle--chauffeured limousines, Lear jet travel, a Pasadena mansion, 24-hour bodyguards and manicured horse ranches--funded in part by contributions. Supporters say Scott's church calls for followers to donate 10% of their income, and one estimated the average contribution at $350 a month.

They also know that Scott's well-placed philanthropy has won him friends that include the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs and even San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Scott organized a telethon that raised $2 million in pledges for Los Angeles' downtown library and supplied $430,000 in donations that helped save the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena.

Countered Taylorsville resident Jeanne Clarke: "Sure, he's rich. Sure, he's got more high-placed friends than the Good Lord himself. But you know how he got all that? By preying on the poor people who can least afford it." Restaurant Closes Amid Controversy Clarke is at the center of a standoff with Scott. In June, she and her husband, Tony, owners of the Grizzly Bite Cafe--the town's only restaurant--refused to serve two Scott employees, including the televangelist's cameraman.

Recalled Clarke: "I said we weren't serving them and the cameraman said 'Could you elaborate?' I said, 'I don't want your money. I think your boss is a crumb and I don't like what he does.' "

The cameraman returned later that day with two Latino men and again asked for service. But Clarke turned them down.

"He announced: 'We're here for lunch,' " Clarke said. "I know he was sent back with two minorities, that it was a setup, but it wasn't worth it to me to serve people who worked for Gene Scott. It would have been like selling my soul."

The next day, cafe regulars could talk of nothing else. Others avoided the cafe. "After that happened, I wouldn't go in there if they were giving away the food," said Ruffner, who sent Scott a letter of apology over the incident. "Not to serve those men just because they worked for Dr. Scott was beyond disgusting. It was illegal."

Scott's lawyers agreed. Less than two weeks later, the Clarkes received a letter from the televangelist's Century City attorney. The letter threatened a lawsuit, claiming the workers were "denied service at your restaurant solely on the basis of their religious affiliation with the ecumenical Christian ministry of Doctor Gene Scott."

The Clarkes responded by closing the cafe.

"It just wasn't worth it," Jeanne Clarke said, standing next to the eatery's discarded marker-board menu, on which someone had penned this barb: "A fool always finds a bigger fool to admire him."

While she has her supporters--many who e-mail her about Scott sightings--Clarke says she's lost so many friends in Taylorsville that she and her husband will soon move away.

"This isn't a town where you start things," Clarke said. "People still think it's the Old West and they can run people out of town. Quite a few who would like to see us go."

Scott's lawyers dropped the threat of a lawsuit with the cafe's closing. But the trouble didn't end there. John Taborski, owner of the town's general store, says Scott's detractors no longer shop at his market. "Sure, I like Gene Scott," he said. "He shops here, frequents local restaurants and tips heavy. He's good for this town.

"But people act like we're the bad guys because we don't think Gene Scott is a monster. Well, too bad for them."

Ruffner says Scott won over some locals when, one day, he rode up on his bike and, after asking to film the old museum, made a $1,000 contribution on the spot, later adding another $16,000. Now a refurbishment project, dormant since the 1970s, is being resumed-thanks to Scott's contribution.

Asked Ruffner: "Do you know how many bake sales it would take to raise that kind of money?"

Others, however, have kicked Scott and his cameraman off their properties. And they have a message for the televangelist who once bragged on the air that he could "probably teach Hugh Hefner a thing or two about sex": Those female companions, known around town as "Scott's bunnies," are a disgrace for a man his age.

Travis said Scott's companions are hired models. And their skimpy garb is intentional. "We put them on the show to attract channel surfers who see beautiful girls on bikes and keep watching," Travis said. "Next thing you know, they're tuning in to the sermons."

Some are just hoping he'll disappear as suddenly as he showed up.

"One day, he walked up and shook my hand, bragging that he owned three TV stations and how he was going to put this town on the map," said George Knaub, a 51-year-old local ranch foreman.

"I don't think he gets it. This town doesn't want to be on the map. We want the rest of the world and people like Dr. Gene Scott to just leave us the heck alone."