Bid to Buy Terminal Site Tabled : Aviation: Airport board cites opposition from Burbank council for its move.

A $109.8-million proposal to buy land for a new, larger terminal will be tabled indefinitely because of adamant opposition from the Burbank City Council, airport commissioners said Monday.

“Is the terminal replacement project over with? Yes,” said Airport Commissioner Robert W. Garcin of Glendale. “Can the terminal replacement project be brought up in the future or will it be? I don’t know.”

The board of commissioners overseeing Burbank Airport was expected to vote on the financial measure during a meeting Monday. But the session was abruptly postponed until next week after an audience member complained that the agenda had not been posted publicly with enough advance notice.

Even when the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority convenes again, however, a vote is not likely because of the council’s firm disapproval of the proposal, airport officials say.

“It can’t pass,” the board’s president, Brian Bowman, said of the proposal. “It’s senseless to even continue.

“The differences between the city and the airport are in the perceptions,” he added. “They think we want to build a huge facility, a small LAX. All we want to do is to design a facility that will accommodate the passengers we’ve got now and on the day of the opening of the facility.”

Airport officials had hoped to build a 465,000-square-foot terminal, nearly triple the present size, with enough room for 5.4 million air travelers and up to 10 more flights a day over the present average of 93 by 1998.

But the Burbank City Council--concerned about the potential for increased aircraft noise and traffic--instructed its three representatives to the Airport Authority, including Bowman, to veto the financial proposal.

Without a two-thirds vote from each of the cities, which oversee the airport’s operations, the Airport Authority cannot incur any debt.

And without the money to buy 140 acres of land owned by Lockheed Martin Corp., plans for expansion of the airport are at a virtual standstill.

It is the second time in two months that airport officials have pulled back from plans to finance the land purchase because of increasingly vociferous opposition in Burbank.

In the emotional, ongoing debate over airport expansion, members of the Airport Authority and Burbank City Council reached common ground recently by declaring that they both want a joint meeting between the city councils of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena to discuss the airport’s future.

“The unfortunate part of it all is that the airport is a political football being kicked all over the place with no rhyme or reason,” said Airport Commissioner Chris Holden of Pasadena. “If everyone was happy in working together, we could reach some meaningful conclusion.”

Monday’s meeting was postponed after R. C. (Chappy) Czapiewski, an aviation buff who regularly follows the Airport Authority, complained that the agenda was not posted by 9 a.m. Friday, or 72 hours in advance as required under state law.

The airport’s executive director, Tom Greer, said the notice was not made public until 10 a.m. Friday because of last-minute changes, prompting Bowman to postpone the meeting altogether.