Burbank councilman raises questions about airport consultant

In the midst of tense ongoing negotiations between the city of Burbank and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, Councilman David Gordon has raised questions about the authority’s hiring of a former airport commissioner.

Gordon this week suggested the negotiations should be frozen until a public meeting can be held to discuss various concerns about the employment of Susan Georgino, who resigned in November, as a consultant to the airport authority and any implications on the city’s negotiating position.

She was hired in May to provide strategic consulting services to the authority related to the development of its proposed 14-gate replacement terminal at a rate of $70 per hour, not to exceed $5,000.

Gordon in late August had called for a discussion about potential conflicts of interest related to her employment. That discussion is now slated for the council meeting Thursday, moved from Tuesday to accommodate Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day.

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Gordon said in an interview this week, adding that “I did not have an avenue to discuss [my concerns]” other than a public meeting.

Not all of his colleagues share his concerns.

“The attorneys have said that there’s no conflict of interest,” said Councilwoman Emily Gabel-Luddy. “I don’t see any conflict of interest.”

A longtime Burbank resident and former director of the city’s Redevelopment Agency and Community Development Department, Georgino was appointed as one of the city’s three airport authority commissioners in October 2011.

She resigned “effective immediately” on Nov. 26, after she and her husband had moved outside the city limits and after the City Council decided to enforce a residency requirement that would have disqualified her from continuing to serve due to the move.

The crux of Gordon’s concern relates to the fact that, in applying for appointment to the commission in 2011, Georgino touted her experience as Community Development Director from January 2001 to June 2009, including “as one of chief negotiators for the comprehensive land-use development agreement” between the airport and the city, according to her resume.

Her resume goes on to state that negotiators were “seeking a solution for an extremely acrimonious relationship, which included $10 million in city legal expenses; this agreement fostered a spirit of cooperation between the airport authority ... and the city of Burbank that had not existed for more than a decade.”

That experience, Gordon contends, would have given her access to “confidential negotiating strategy” and other “intimate knowledge” that he says might now be up for sale to the authority.

He also wants clarification regarding whether she violated the city’s prohibition against former high-level employees or appointees, including airport commissioners, from appearing before the City Council or any city board, commission, officer or employee on any matter that they had participated in as an employee or appointee for a full year after their departure.

Georgino said this week she has not violated that section of the Burbank Municipal Code. She said she has not appeared before the City Council and has no intention of doing so. In a series of emails provided to Gordon in response to a public records request, she said she would not represent the authority “with respect to the deal” for the proposed replacement terminal.

In a letter to Gordon that accompanied the response to his public records request, the airport authority’s attorney Terence Boga said Georgino has not appeared before any city board, commission, employee or officer “contemplated by the ordinance.”

Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority response to Councilman David Gordon’s PRA Request

Lucy Burghdorf, a spokeswoman for the airport, said last month that Georgino had appeared at a closed session of the airport authority.

But Gordon said he has concerns about the airport’s response to his request for documents, in which Boga claimed some documents were exempt from disclosure as preliminary drafts and memos, or under attorney-client privilege.

Georgino said that any privileged information she may have about the city’s negotiating position information she had while serving as airport commissioner.

However, Gordon argued that at that time she was representing the city, not serving as a paid consultant on behalf of the airport. He also raised questions about the fact that the city was not “officially” informed that Georgino had been hired and found out apparently by accident in August after she was seen coming out of a closed session of the authority.

“I’m not really sure what he’s driving at,” Georgino said. “It’s hard for me to understand why he would think ... that I would in any way, shape or form [harm Burbank].”

She said she and her husband moved six blocks outside the city limits and under the flight path of the airport. Plus, she said, her son and daughter-in-law, as well as her three grandchildren still live in Burbank, a city she’s lived in and served for 35 years, and where she continues to be involved in church and volunteer activities.

City Manager Mark Scott said he didn’t know what conflict Gordon was uneasy about, but the meeting will give him an opportunity to describe it to his colleagues.

Gordon said in the interest of transparency, he wants to discuss the issue before the public. If the majority of his colleagues say it’s fine, he said, so be it, but something “just doesn’t sit well” with him.

“It smells, I’ll put it that way,” he said.