Council, Airport Agency Can Agree on Terminal

I agree wholeheartedly with your April 23 editorial on the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport terminal project.

As a Burbank City Council member who is on the record as supporting a new, reasonably larger terminal, I also voted to direct the three Burbank Airport Authority members to vote against the proposed financing plan. Why? Because while the airport authority agreed to limit its use of the proposed bond proceeds solely to the acquisition of land, it was unwilling to allow the city councils of Burbank, Glendale or Pasadena to exert any control over the size of the new, yet undefined, terminal facility.

In its current form, the plan would allow the airport authority, with a combination of federal grants or private partnership funding or both, to construct whatever size terminal it chose without any input from the city of Burbank.

I appreciate the airport, with all of the economic benefits it brings to the city of Burbank, and I believe we need a new terminal of reasonable size and number of gates to accommodate what I hope will be continued economic growth in the region. I also expect the airport authority to work with the city of Burbank to:

* Determine the appropriate size of the new terminal.

* Determine the number of gates the new terminal will have.

* Find a way to enforce the early morning and late evening curfew and try to make the city whole on the loss of property taxes when the airport removes land from our tax rolls.

A new terminal project intended to provide for a safer and more convenient airport is far from dead in my mind. I look forward to working with the authority in the future in a continued effort toward providing a terminal facility that is compatible with its surroundings and sensitive to the needs of our community and the region as a whole.

BILL WIGGINS

Burbank

Wiggins is major of Burbank.