Council Rejects Plan for Airport : Aviation: Opposition to financing package to acquire the site for a larger terminal effectively kills the project.

Effectively killing the most recent proposal to expand Burbank Airport, the Burbank City Council has voted to oppose a $109.8-million package to finance the acquisition of land for a new, larger terminal.

The council, on a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, stated that promised concessions from the board overseeing the airport were not enough to assure council members a greater say in how the terminal would be built.

The vote came as Burbank residents overwhelmingly elected retired aerospace worker Ted McConkey to the council in a runoff election Tuesday. McConkey made opposition to expansion a centerpiece of his campaign.

It was the latest--and perhaps most significant--setback for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which had withdrawn an earlier financing plan to acquire land, delayed action on the current proposal so the council could study the package, and then agreed to most demands the council made last week.

“It’s an abandoned deal. It’s a dead issue. The city of Burbank has effectively killed it,” airport Commissioner Robert W. Garcin of Glendale said. “Right now, I don’t know of any other alternatives.”

Airport officials had hoped to build a new terminal nearly three times the facility’s present size, with enough space to accommodate 5.4 million passengers and up to 10 more flights a day over the current average of 93 by 1998.

Before any debts can be issued, two of the three representatives to the Authority from each of the three member cities--Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena--must approve the plan. Each city appoints three commissioners, so majority opposition in any one city can block a project.

Burbank Mayor Bill Wiggins, Vice Mayor Dave Golonski and Councilwoman Susan Spanos have instructed the city’s three representatives to vote against the financial measure Monday.

Two of those representatives, Councilmen Robert Bowne and George Battey Jr., agreed to obey the council’s orders. Brian Bowman, president of the Airport Authority, was out of state Tuesday and Wednesday, and could not be reached for comment.

Last week, the Airport Authority had tried to assuage the council by giving in to three demands: to limit the $109.8 million to the purchase of land only, to make a good-faith effort to enforce a voluntary curfew on commercial flights, and to compensate the city for lost property taxes that might result from building the project.

But airport officials backed away from making a key concession that would have given Burbank veto power over all aspects of financing construction of the new terminal.

That was enough to force Wiggins, who generally supports the first phase of airport expansion, to cast the council’s deciding vote against the proposal.

“I guess I have a great deal of concern over the events that unfolded over the last week,” he said, referring to the last-minute notice of the proposal, which stunned some council members. “I trust everybody until they prove otherwise and do me wrong.”

“There is, in my mind, a possibility that if we approve the land sale, somehow, some way, a new terminal could go further” without the need for the council’s consent, he added.

Wiggins said he also worries that the council could be vulnerable to a lawsuit if it agrees to let airport officials acquire 140 acres of Lockheed Corp. land before two newly elected anti-expansion council members take office on May 1.

In 1992, private developer Thomas Tunnicliffe Sr. was awarded $1.5 million in an out-of-court settlement with the Burbank City Council after he claimed the city illegally backed out of a deal to help him build an office and retail building.

Initially, the council, meeting as the Burbank Redevelopment Agency, agreed to help Tunnicliffe acquire property. But two council members later changed their minds, prompting Tunnicliffe to sue.

Tuesday was the second time in less than two weeks that the council has ordered its airport commissioners to vote against the $109.8-million proposal.

During the council meeting, Spanos said she sided against the airport’s proposal largely because the city has not yet received proper legal advice.

“We need to get legal counsel to tell us what the legal ramifications will be.”