Letter Aids Burbank in Airport Expansion Battle

BURBANK — In a boost for the city of Burbank in the long-running battle over expansion of Burbank Airport, the state attorney general’s office has urged the airport authority to halt its effort to condemn land on which to build a new terminal, and encouraged the warring parties to talk.

A letter from the attorney general’s office to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority was hailed Thursday by Burbank leaders, who contend it lays the groundwork for the attorney general to step in on their side of the dispute. “We were damn happy to get it,” said Bud Ovrom, Burbank city manager.

But Victor Gill, spokesman for the airport authority, called the letter “part of Burbank’s grand strategy . . . this letter to me was undoubtedly orchestrated to generate controversy.”

The airport authority is planning a new and expanded terminal, but the city, concerned about noise and traffic, is fighting the plan on several fronts in an effort to get more control over the airport’s growth.

Wednesday’s letter from Assistant Atty. Gen. Richard M. Frank to the airport commissioners spotlights the latest battlefront in the dispute: the 130 acres to the north of the airport that was once home to the Lockheed Corp.’s aerospace manufacturing plants. The airport has condemned the land and plans to use it for the new terminal, parking lots and other airport facilities.

But the city, faced with the prospect of a large, centrally located patch of industrial land leaving its tax rolls, would rather see portions of the property set aside for hotels, restaurants and office buildings.

Burbank officials were elated by strong language in Wednesday’s letter that they said indicated possible legal action against the airport authority:

“We . . . urgently request that you immediately cease and desist in this course of conduct without the need for further litigation,” the letter said. “Should the authority proceed in its stated course of conduct . . . we will be forced to take necessary and appropriate action to enforce state law.”

Moreover, the attorney general’s letter lent support to Burbank’s view that state law gives the city virtual veto power over the airport’s right to expand.

“The authority has declared its intention to deliberately ignore and refuse to comply” with a state public utilities code that requires city approval for the airport expansion, the letter stated.

But the letter also offered a possible way out of the dispute by making available the attorney general’s services to help in mediations. “Our main goal is to get both sides to sit down and discuss this,” said Matt Ross, spokesman for the attorney general.

Gill, for the airport authority, said the airport plans to go ahead with the takeover despite the attorney general’s warning. “The airport has been involved in lawful judicial proceeding in a court of California,” he said, referring to the condemnation suit filed last summer. “There is no reason to stop that activity at this point.”

Ross, the attorney general’s spokesman, said there is no immediate action planned against the airport authority. The letter was simply an attempt to urge the two sides to sit down and talk, he said.