FTC Hears Burbank’s Plea on Store

Meetings between a Burbank delegation and Federal Trade Commission members over the threatened withdrawal of Robinson’s department store from the planned Towncenter mall failed to indicate the FTC’s position on the issue, city officials said.

Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom, who traveled to Washington with Mayor Mary E. Kelsey, Councilman Robert R. Bowne and Towncenter consultant Gerald Trimble, said separate sessions Tuesday with the five FTC commissioners laid out Burbank’s side of the controversy, which developed from the proposed merger of the May Co. with Associated Dry Goods, the parent company of Robinson’s.