Burbank City Council members question point of mayor and vice mayor’s Washington D.C. trip

Some Burbank City Council members questioned the value of a recent trip to Washington, D.C., where local city government and airport officials met with senior Federal Aviation Administration officials.

Last week, the council discussed the matter in a public meeting for the first time since Mayor Bob Frutos and Vice Mayor Jess Talamantes, along with Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority officials, met with federal officials on Capitol Hill in the office of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with what’s going on in the 818 >>

Schiff had arranged the meeting after the council and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority each agreed late last year to a set of conceptual terms for a proposed replacement terminal at Bob Hope Airport. The trip was contained in the latest version of the “conceptual terms sheet” describing the points of agreement.

After returning, officials said in December they had discussed the terms with FAA officials and also broached the subject of a mandatory nighttime curfew at the airfield, which Burbank officials have sought for decades.

However, Councilman David Gordon suggested last week that, for all it seemed to have accomplished, a phone call would have sufficed.

“The purpose of going back was to find out if there was a way to get a curfew,” Gordon said. “As I read this [two-page memo about the trip], they basically said, ‘no.’”

City Atty. Amy Albano, who had also been on the trip, said the city’s memo did not “give justice” to the substance of the meeting. She said one thing the meeting accomplished was to convey unanimous support among city and airport officials, and their congressman, for a mandatory curfew, even to the point of pursuing federal legislation.

In an interview this week, Frutos repeated that point, saying “it was important for [the FAA] to hear that the people of Burbank still want a mandatory curfew” and to tell Schiff that a legislative effort is still supported.

Councilman Will Rogers, however, said his list of concerns was longer than the city’s memo. He complained that the trip had been scheduled too hastily to allow a proper public meeting for council members to discuss their agenda, goals and representation on the trip, in order to make the most of the opportunity.

He felt that without its own agenda, the council may have been seen as having its agenda set for it by the airport and may have been used as a “prop.”

“This was used for public relations ... to create the appearance of something that wasn’t there, and that’s the five of us having agreed on terms for a new airport terminal and now we’re going to go tell the Feds about it,” Rogers said. “And that’s not the case.”

No final agreement has been inked. Rogers said he and others were assured that nothing was set in stone in the conceptual terms that were discussed with the FAA.

Rogers noted that airport officials have set a goal of putting the replacement terminal issue on the November ballot and said he felt the city was being put under “enormous pressure” to help meet that deadline. But, he said, “I’m not responding to that [pressure].”

Councilwoman Emily Gabel-Luddy said she did not feel the city was “window dressing,” and said she wasn’t sure the council could have said “no” to Schiff’s assistance in scheduling it.

This week, Frutos, who has said he took Rogers’ critiques as a lack of confidence in him, said “in a perfect world, I would agree with him 100%,” but delaying the trip could have jeopardized any meeting at all and kept things from moving forward.

--

Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland