Local News in Brief : Governor Signs Bill for Burbank Parkland
A bill that will help Burbank purchase 240 hillside acres for parkland was signed Tuesday by Gov. George Deukmejian.
The bill, co-authored by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), allocates $3 million in state tidelands oil revenue to pay half the cost of buying the privately owned land in the Verdugo Mountains.
The bill requires the city to pay the rest.
The value of the land, which is owned by six people, is being disputed.
Burbank officials said an appraiser they hired estimated that the property is worth $6 million. But developer Sherman Whitmore, who owns 185 acres of the land, said his own appraiser valued his property at almost $38 million.
City officials said they soon will begin negotiations with Whitmore and the other property owners. The two sides met informally in early summer.
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