3 Cities Stop Sniping, Join in Coalition

Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena have long boasted a partnership of sorts. They share ownership of an airport, an emergency-dispatch system and have gained new political clout with a transportation coalition.

Still, developers and politicians in each city compete fiercely for new business. And the relationship has had its political strains.

Former Burbank Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard, for example, has accused Pasadena and Glendale officials of being unresponsive to their constituents by meeting in the afternoon, when most people work. Glendale Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg once proposed that her city buy Burbank’s formerly vacant downtown redevelopment area and turn it into a parking lot.

But in an increasingly competitive and less stable economy, hostilities no longer make sense. So government and business leaders are moving toward a wide-ranging alliance. A regional seminar to talk about the proposed Tri-Cities coalition is scheduled Friday at the Burbank Airport Hilton, 2500 N. Hollywood Way.

The idea is that cooperation among the cities makes more sense than rivalry. Relocation of an employer to one of the cities, proponents say, means job opportunities for residents of the other two.

“Better here than in Santa Monica,” said Aulden Schlatter, executive director of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce.

“There will always be a natural competition between the three cities and that’s healthy,” said Bruce Ackerman, executive director of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce. “But I sense a real change in the competitive attitude. It’s more cooperative, more of let’s do everything together. We have a constituency of a million strong if we pull together; three separate cities if we don’t.”

Although Pasadena is a member of another regional organization, the San Gabriel Valley Commerce and Cities Consortium, Ackerman said that organization is more focused on promoting and retaining businesses and is “a totally different concept” from the Tri-Cities proposal.

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena partnership, he said, would be the first to establish home rule over a wide variety of regional issues. “That’s not to say that Pasadena would not be interested in working with its neighbors to the east as well” if a similar program is proposed, Ackerman said.

Marco Brown, executive vice president of the San Gabriel consortium, said she plans to attend the Burbank seminar to learn more about the group’s concept and to determine if similar steps might be taken in other San Gabriel Valley cities.

Officials refer to the concept as “regional governance.” Ackerman defines it as “mutual agreements and mutual cooperation” among cities without the legal bureaucratic standing of a state-mandated body, such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The concept signals a pending political power struggle between cities and the state. Four bills introduced in the Legislature last year would entitle the state to mandate regional alliances, or so-called super boards made up of state-appointed directors. That scares city and business leaders, who envision the state wrenching away more local control.

“We’re not too happy with mandates to establish regional governments,” Schlatter said. “We have enough government as it is, and we don’t need another layer.”

“For many years we have been concerned about the growing amount of regional government,” Glendale City Manager David Ramsay said. “We have the air quality board, the waste management board, a whole bunch of regional bodies out there that are taking more and more control.”

Ramsay said officials in Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena recognize that a number of issues--such as air and water quality, transportation, waste management and land use--cross city boundaries. “What we don’t like are these super boards that are simply imposed on us,” he said.

City and chamber officials have been working for the last year to develop their own approach to regional government in the three cities. Zoe Taylor, executive director of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce, said state action is imminent, stalled only temporarily by the state budget crisis and such issues as the Los Angeles riots.

In a chamber newsletter issued today, Taylor warns: “Once the state Legislature and the governor resolve the state’s budget crisis, the issue of regional governance and government is expected again to be placed high on the legislative agenda. It is believed that it is only a matter of time before some type of state legislation on regional governance will be enacted.”

But the regional organizations that exist, such as the air quality district and the Southern California Assn. of Governments, represent what local leaders do not like. “They are too big, cover too large a territory and their purpose is too focused to be of regional benefit,” Ackerman said. “What we are exploring is how can we just pool our resources and impact problems without creating another layer of government.”

Ray Cruz, Glendale assistant city manager, said local leaders fear that creation of state super boards “may have no political accountability” to the region they govern. “This is scaring the business sector,” he said.

Friday’s seminar will include speakers from throughout the state who will discuss the potential impact of regional governance on business and development. “Our constituents need to understand what may be facing them in the future,” Taylor said.

Among speakers will be Carol Whiteside, assistant secretary of intergovernmental relations of the state Resources Agency. She said such partnerships should begin “with or without the state’s leadership.

“The more they can get ahead of the game, the better off they will be when the state comes up with the ‘Golden Policy,’ ” Whiteside said.

Reservations for the seminar, to be held from 8 a.m. to noon, are available by contacting the Burbank chamber at (818) 846-3111. The cost is $15 per person.