Burbank Breaks Airport Planning Accord : Council: City pulls out of year-old cooperative agreement with panel over area development, expansion of terminal.

In yet another sign of discontent over airport expansion, the City Council has dissolved a year-old agreement with Burbank Airport commissioners that called for both sides to work together on all aspects of planning for the airport’s future.

Plans to build a new, larger terminal have been at a virtual standstill since April, when Burbank City Council members opposed to the project complained about being left out of decisions about financing the project.

Animosity between some on the City Council and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority turned even the agreement--called a Memorandum of Cooperation--into a bone of contention Tuesday.

New Councilman Bob Kramer described the 14-page document as “nothing but an attempt by the Airport Authority to tell us how to run our city.”

The authority’s vice president, Joyce Streator of Pasadena, sighed Wednesday after hearing about the council’s vote and said: “Kind of seems sad, doesn’t it?”

“I wasn’t at their meeting,” she said. “I don’t know what it means. It seems like another step in increasing indications that they are anti-airport.”

In an attempt to reach a final consensus on the prospects of building a new terminal, Pasadena Mayor William Paparian said Wednesday he has arranged to hold a joint meeting for airport commissioners and the city councils of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena at 7:30 p.m. July 31 in the Pasadena City Council chambers.

The meeting is believed to be the first time that any of the three cities have discussed airport issues collectively since the airport authority was created in 1977.

Paparian, who is also an airport commissioner and frequent supporter of the Burbank City Council, disagreed with Streator and said he believes the council’s action makes sense.

“For me, the bottom line is, I don’t see it as a problem. . . . We have not yet begun the process of consensus building in the community. We need to reach consensus on the vision of the future of the airport.”

The Memorandum of Cooperation states, among other things, that both the City Council and the Burbank Redevelopment Agency accept the concept of a new, larger terminal and are willing to rely on the authority’s consultants to determine the best size and location for it.

In addition, it states that city and airport officials “shall cooperate with each other” on ways to develop land in and around the airport--a point that particularly troubled new Councilman Ted McConkey.

“We should not give up our independent ability to plan in areas outside the airport proper,” said McConkey, who made the motion to dissolve the agreement, which passed on a 4-1 vote.

Casting the lone dissenting vote was Councilman Bill Wiggins, who warned his colleagues they were making a hasty decision that they might later regret. “I hate to see us or the airport authority do a knee-jerk reaction,” he said.

Wiggins is the only member of the council to support the first phase of airport expansion. He also served as Burbank’s mayor when the agreement was signed last May.