Assembly OKs Bill Needed by Burbank to Buy Open Space

Last-minute wizardry in the Assembly has kept alive the Burbank’s plan to buy pristine canyon land from an owner who wants to carve it into housing tracts.

The Assembly, on a 54-21 vote late Thursday night, sent to the governor a bill releasing $3 million to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for the purchase of land for its Rim of the Valley Trail corridor. The money for the Burbank open space is contingent upon the city matching the appropriation.

The urgency measure received one more vote than necessary for passage. Margolin said the governor has not indicated whether he will sign or veto the bill.

Earlier this year, the reconstituted Burbank City Council decided to seek state funds to help it buy 240 acres of hillside property in the Verdugo Mountains. However, the city’s inquiry had arrived too late in Sacramento to be considered in the state budget for this fiscal year, which began July 1.

Bill Rewritten

Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes Burbank, offered a solution. In July, he gutted one of his inactive bills, dealing with annual-report requirements for small utilities, and rewrote it to provide money for the open space.

At an Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing on the bill Thursday, it was noted by members that the measure had been completely changed. Everyone, however, voted for the bill except Assemblyman Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield), who later asked on the Assembly floor, “What’s more important, building more prisons to get criminals off the street or purchasing land for a park for the city of Burbank?”

Burbank has been active over the years in acquiring property in the Verdugo Mountains. The 240 acres mark the last of the 2,750 acres to be acquired, said Richard Inga, director of the city’s Park and Recreation Department.

The acquisition of the ecologically sensitive area at this time is critical, Inga said.

“Unless we have the funds to negotiate with developers, it may be lost forever,” he said.