Airport Authority Spent $90,000 on Travel in 3 Years : Burbank: Commissioners used funds to pay for first-class flights, limo rides and a massage, records show.

Burbank Airport commissioners have spent nearly $90,000 for travel in the last three years, including first-class airplane trips to Maui, Toronto and the Virgin Islands, three limousine rides and an $85 massage at a Washington, D.C., hotel, according to documents obtained by The Times.

Between 1992 and 1995, records show, some commissioners on the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority spent as much as $218 per night for a hotel room in Maui and flew spouses to Nashville first-class for $1,777 each at the airport’s expense. The trips were to conferences of airport operators.

Among the biggest spenders on the nine-member Airport Authority are longtime Commissioner Robert W. Garcin of Glendale, former Commissioner John C. Crowley of Pasadena, and former President Brian Bowman, who resigned from the board in May. Garcin, Crowley and Bowman billed the airport for $12,639, $14,099 and $15,864 in expenses, respectively.

Garcin once billed the Airport Authority for an $85 leg-and-knee massage at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington during a conference on legislative issues in 1993. Garcin, president of the Airport Authority from 1984 to 1994 and still a member, said Tuesday he does not remember the expense claim.

“I get massages wherever I go. I have very bad spinal difficulties,” Garcin said Tuesday. “I don’t remember any past massages at any particular hotel on any particular trip. I would insist that on the other nine, 10, 11 trips, I paid for my own massages.”

Past heads of the Airport Authority, including Garcin, have interpreted broadly the board’s written policy on travel, which simply states that the president may approve the travel expenses of commissioners “when it is related to the business affairs of the Airport Authority.”

Since 1978, when the authority took control of the airport, the board’s president has allowed commissioners to fly first-class on airport-related trips to destinations more than 500 miles from Burbank. Commissioners have been allowed to bring spouses along at public expense, a practice which Garcin said Tuesday he now believes should end.

Of 36 expense reports seeking reimbursements for air travel, 21 were for first-class air travel and 13 included spouses who came along.

The only current commissioners who have not traveled first-class, according to the documents, are Carl Meseck of Glendale and Burbank’s three newly named representatives, Philip E. Berlin, Margie Gee and Ingolf Klengler. Commissioners who have not brought along spouses are Meseck, Chris Holden and Joyce Streator of Pasadena, Garcin of Glendale, and former Burbank Commissioner Robert R. Bowne.

The documents may not be entirely complete, and airport officials have until the end of the month to turn in any additional documents to the grand jury.

All commissioners interviewed Tuesday said they have done nothing to violate their own policy.

The 300 pages of documents reviewed are copies of those subpoenaed by the Los Angeles County grand jury, which is reviewing expense reimbursement practices at the airport. The documents were turned over to prosecutors last Thursday.

Officials at other airports in Southern California have enacted tougher limits on how much commissioners may spend.

At John Wayne Airport in Orange County, the five commissioners do not get paid for out-of-town trips and are only reimbursed for gas to drive to and from meetings, according to an airport spokeswoman.

At Los Angeles International, Van Nuys, Palmdale and Ontario airports, officials fly coach for nearly all business-related trips and are not allowed to bring their spouses without paying themselves. All are operated by the Los Angeles Department of Airports.

“I don’t care what other airport authorities do, that’s their business,” Garcin said. “I’m not involved in other airport authorities and I don’t presume to tell them what to do.”

The records also show that:

* In 1993, current president of the Airport Authority, Carl W. Raggio Jr. of Glendale, was one of three commissioners who took limo rides from Nashville Airport in Tennessee to the Opryland Hotel for a conference for airport proprietors. Raggio submitted a claim for $54 for the limo ride.

The decision to rent limos for a single trip rather than cars was made by Burbank Airport employees and saved time and money, said Burbank Airport spokesman Victor Gill.

* That same year, a commissioner from Pasadena, Chris Holden, spent $3,004 in five days attending an airport marketing and public relations workshop on the Virgin Islands. Of that money, $16 went toward tips at the airport and hotel.

“As a new commissioner, it was good for me to go to that conference,” Holden said Tuesday. “I guess if it had been in Wichita, Kan., that’s probably where I’d gone. The policy at that time was first-class travel was appropriate. I didn’t argue that. I took advantage of it,” he said, adding that his height--6 feet, 8 inches--makes it necessary for him to have extra leg room.

“If there’s a technical glitch in terms of how we’re applying the policy, then I guess we can correct the glitch.”

Garcin said he believes the authority should no longer pay for the travel of commissioners’ spouses at public expense.

Garcin cited a 1992 opinion by the California attorney general’s office, which concluded that it was unlawful for a hospital district to pay travel expenses for the spouse of a hospital official attending a conference on official business.

“To grant that request [for spousal travel], I’m not saying that is a violation of the law. But to grant it would be in opposition to the position of the attorney general,” Garcin said, adding that he now believes requests for free spousal travel should be denied by Raggio, the current president.

Raggio could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Commission Expenses

Travel expenses for Burbank Airport commissioners between 1992 and 1995:

Brian Bowman * of Burbank, past president of commission: $15,864.51

John C. Crowley * of Pasadena: $14,099.93

Robert Garcin of Glendale, past president of commission: $12,639.25

William Paparian of Pasadena: $9,730.81

George Battey Jr. * of Burbank: $8,013.68

Chris Holden of Pasadena: $7,712.24

Carl W. Raggio Jr. of Glendale, current president of commission: $6,495.16

Robert R. Bowne * of Burbank: $3,597.26

Jo Heckman * of Pasadena: $3,283.14

Joyce Streator of Pasadena: $3,049.77

David K. Robinson * of Pasadena: $2,407.16

Carl Meseck of Glendale: $1,012.15

Michael Hastings * of Burbank: $920

Note: Figures include travel by some spouses. Asterisk denotes former commissioners. Burbank has three newly named commissioners who have claimed no travel expenses.

Source: Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority