Studios Led the Battle to Defeat Ballot Measures : Development: NBC, Disney and Warner Bros. contributed at least $467,559 to a Burbank group. The February initiatives would have restricted their growth.

Three major entertainment industry studios headquartered in Burbank outspent citizens committees by nearly 30 to 1 in a successful campaign to defeat two initiatives that would have restricted their growth, campaign spending reports released Friday showed.

The studios--NBC, The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros.--contributed at least $467,559 to the Burbank Media Industry Committee Against Measures A and B between Feb. 10 and June 30, according to documents filed with the Burbank city clerk.

The committee was formed by companies and residents opposed to the two measures, which were rejected by more than two-thirds of the votes cast in the city’s February primary election.

In contrast, two committees supporting the measures--Friends of the City of Burbank and Committee for Yes on Measure B--spent $16,045 during the same period, the documents showed.

The committee spent a total of $544,692, according to the documents--a ratio of 34 to 1.

The gap was probably larger, but the documents were vague on the precise use of many thousands of dollars spent by the studios on other activities in the campaign.

Studio officials declined to clarify the figures Friday.

According to the official reports, NBC gave the committee $159,059, Warner Bros. $156,071 and Disney $152,428.

The wide disparity in campaign funds caused at least one opponent of the measures to lament that spending by her side had gotten out of hand, and that the political battle might have been unbalanced.

“Much too much money has been spent,” said former Burbank City Councilwoman Mary Kelsey, a member of the steering committee for the group opposed to the two measures. “It’s really sad when a town of our size feels that this kind of money has to be spent on either side. It’s a case where the guy with the most money gets the most votes. This is when money talks, and I hate to see that.”

Kelsey said she was aware that the studios were spending significant amounts on the campaign but that she and other committee members were unaware how much. “We knew the studios felt they had a lot to lose, but the talk was that they were only going to spend $200,000,” she said. “I guess it went way beyond that.”

Carolyn Berlin, who co-authored Measure B, said the studios “bought the election. It’s really unfortunate that they made it look like it was a group of citizens. But for them to spend that kind of money, it must have been real important for them to win.”

But studio officials and others who fought the measures maintained that the political fight was fair, despite the spending gap.

They said the money spent by the studios was justified because the economic survival of their businesses and the city was at stake.

“These were ill-conceived measures,” said Alan Epstein, vice president of the Disney Development Co. “They would have ultimately led to increased taxes and would have reduced public services. It was important that the citizens get the message that the measures would have had an extraordinary impact.”

Also, the passage of the initiatives would have had a drastic effect on Disney’s growth, Epstein said. “It would have severely limited our growth in years to come,” he said. “The electorate took that to heart. They did not want initiatives that would limit growth in Burbank.”

Epstein said the measures would have kept the studio from building more sound stages. “We have only five sound stages on our lot, where our competitors have 25 or 30,” he said.

The measures, along with a third growth-control initiative, Measure C, were decisively defeated by voters in the municipal election.

Measure A, rejected by 77% of the voters, would have put severe restrictions on commercial and residential development.

Measure B, rejected by 66%, was less restrictive than Measure A, but it would have put height limits on commercial buildings and called for development compatible with residential areas.

Measure C would have prohibited the sale or lease of surplus school property to private developers.

Proponents of the measures said they were needed because rampant development was threatening the city’s neighborhoods.

But Mayor Michael R. Hastings said the measures would have been devastating to the city’s economy, and that the money opposing the measure was well-spent.

“It was a fair fight,” he said. “The survival of the community was on the line, and the citizens had to be educated. The way to do that was through mailers and by the telephone. If the studios hadn’t spent that money, they would have been thrown out of business and forced to relocate somewhere else.

“They needed to protect their investment; the citizens recognized that investment.”

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone contributed to this article.