Disney Pact Made in Open, Burbank Says

Burbank officials denied Monday that they acted in secret to award a potentially lucrative redevelopment contract to the Walt Disney Co., as a Disney competitor alleged in a lawsuit filed last week.

At a special meeting to discuss the suit, the Burbank Redevelopment Agency took no action but heard Mayor Michael R. Hastings and City Atty. Douglas C. Holland reiterate the city’s intention to fight the legal challenge by MCA to Burbank’s May 5 agreement with Disney.

Later Monday, Disney officials said the dispute has not altered their plans to seek approval to develop a coveted 40 city acres at a cost of $150 million to $300 million.

“Nothing has changed,” Disney spokesman Mike Ferguson said. “Everything I’ve seen indicates we’re going right ahead.”

Preliminary Plans

The proposed Disney-MGM Studio Backlot development would feature shops, theaters, restaurants, a ride whisking passengers through famous movie scenes, and a Hollywood Fantasy Hotel. Final plans, which would be subject to city approval, are to be submitted next year.

MCA’s lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges that the Burbank Redevelopment Agency decided behind closed doors to award Disney the exclusive right to develop plans for the property. MCA charged that such a decision would violate the Brown Act, a state law requiring local governments to act on most matters in a public forum. Disney is not a defendant in the suit.

Holland said Monday that the city did not violate the law.

“Although members of the Agency met with Disney representatives prior to the meeting of May 5, a fact we have freely admitted,” he said, “the agency did not, in advance of the May 5 meeting, commit itself collectively to the approval. . . . Consensus was not reached until the conclusion of the public discussion of that item on the agency agenda.”

MCA alleged in its suit that any meeting of a council majority should have been advertised and open to the public. But Holland contended that the Brown Act does not require such measures.

“Your political existence depends upon the ability of your constituents to approach you with a problem, or an opinion, and to discuss an issue with you,” he said. “A legislative body cannot exist in a vacuum. Yet that is precisely what MCA is stating in its lawsuit.”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Henry Ullerich said Monday that the Brown Act does not say explicitly what constitutes a meeting, although some courts have ruled that informal gatherings at which public business is discussed may be viewed as meetings.

Competition Motive

Holland said MCA is taking the city to court to squelch competition from Disney. MCA runs the Universal Studios tour in Universal City, just a few miles from the Burbank site. The two entertainment giants also have been battling over an MCA proposal for a studio-tour complex in Florida.

“The primary concern of MCA is keeping Disney out of the Towncenter Site,” Holland told City Council members, who double as members of the redevelopment agency. “I suspect that, had you been content to live with mediocrity and discount stores, commercial offices and apartments, MCA would not have cared about the manner in which the agency reviewed the development proposals.”

The Burbank City Council is scheduled to vote this evening on Holland’s recommendation that it retain Los Angeles attorney Thomas Feeley to represent the city in the lawsuit.