Records Detail Airport Panel’s Travel Expenses : Burbank: Commissioners were reimbursed for $130,000 on trips during 1992-95, including first-class flights, limousine rides.

Tours of a dormant volcano in Hawaii for $50 each. A $50 ocean cruise. Two limousine rides at $105 each.

Burbank Airport commissioners were reimbursed for those expenses with airport funds, according to new records given to a Los Angeles County grand jury that bring to nearly $130,000 the total paid to commissioners for business-related travel between 1992 and 1995.

The records, obtained under the California Public Records Act, also show that an additional $15,094 was spent by the airport’s executive director, Tom Greer, Controller Dios Marrero and a handful of airport staff workers who also travel on business trips.

The new batch of records--about 400 pages--was turned over to a grand jury investigating allegations of misuse of public funds.

Beyond pricey hotel rooms, tours and tips, expense reports submitted by commissioners and staffers contain items such as first-class air fares, five limousine rides, a fashion show and two trolley rides in Boston.

After The Times obtained and disclosed last month a partial list of travel expenses, the authority’s new president, Carl W. Raggio Jr. of Glendale, pledged to end first-class air travel by commissioners and to discontinue the practice of paying for travel for spouses of commissioners. Of the 57 expense reports submitted by Burbank Airport commissioners and presented to the grand jury in the first round of reports in June, 22 were for first-class travel and 13 included spouses.

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Reacting to the new expense reports this week, Raggio pledged to apply the new rules to the airport’s staff as well.

Referring to an upcoming retreat in which the nine-member Airport Authority is expected to officially change its longstanding travel policy, Raggio said: “I’d like to have the commission make the ground rules for travel and I will implement them. But for the time being, I’ve got to implement some ground rules.”

Raggio’s predecessors, Robert W. Garcin and Brian Bowman, routinely approved of first-class air fares and other perks for the airport’s commissioners and spouses so long as the trips were related to airport business.

Airport staffers have also been allowed to fly first-class, but cannot bring along spouses at the airport’s expense, said airport spokesman Victor Gill.

In 1992, while Garcin was president, he spent $210 on limousine rides to and from the Stouffer Wailea Beach Resort in Hawaii and $70 on tips alone over four days at a conference of airport proprietors.

The Airport Authority also paid $350 in tours and other recreational events for three ex-commissioners, two of their spouses and two airport staffers who attended the same conference.

Former Commissioner David K. Robinson of Pasadena and his wife were signed up to visit the Haleakala Crater, the world’s largest dormant volcano, along with ex-Commissioner Jo Heckman, who died earlier this year.

A third ex-commissioner, Michael Hastings of Burbank, and his wife took a boat cruise at the airport’s expense, while an administrative assistant for the airport, Dee Marlette, was permitted to attend a fashion show.

On Thursday, Robinson said he could not remember ever touring the crater.

Hastings said he was not aware the Airport Authority paid for his boat cruise. “I was told Lockheed Air Terminal [the airport’s management firm] was picking that up,” he said.

“I don’t know if I would have gone on it if the Airport Authority was going to pay for it. It was my understanding we were the guests of Viggo Butler,” president of the firm, which employs most of the airport’s staff and is now named Airport Group International.

Butler was out of the country and could not be reached for comment. But a spokeswoman for Butler confirmed that Hastings was invited on the cruise as a guest of Lockheed. She could not, however, explain why records showed the Airport Authority paid the expense.

The authority’s travel policies have been more liberal than those at other airports. At John Wayne Airport in Orange County, for example, commissioners do not get paid for out-of-town trips and are only reimbursed for gas to drive to and from meetings, an airport spokeswoman said. And at airports operated by the Los Angeles Department of Airports--LAX, Van Nuys, Palmdale and Ontario--officials typically fly coach and cannot bring along spouses without paying for it themselves.

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Current commissioners who have not flown first-class are Carl Meseck of Glendale and Burbank’s three new representatives, Philip E. Berlin, Margie A. Gee and Ingolf Klengler. All four, as well as Commissioners Chris Holden and Joyce Streator of Pasadena, have never billed the Airport Authority for spouses’ travel.

Among airport staffers, only Greer has flown first-class, according to the documents.

During a 1993 meeting with bond underwriters in New York, he billed the Airport Authority $197 for two limousine rides shuttling him and Heckman between the airport and their hotel.

“I’ve never rented a car in New York. I’m not going to get into justifying limo rides,” Greer said. “It was ground transportation and what I needed to get to where I was going.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Expense Report Travel expenses and conference fees for Burbank Airport commissioners and airport staff from 1992 to 1995 totaled $145,021.

COMMISSIONERS Name: Brian Bowman* City: Burbank Position: Past president of commission Expenses: $24,561.71 *

Name: Robert W. Garcin City: Glendale Position: Past president of commission Expenses: $22,856.50 *

Name: Carl W. Raggio Jr. City: Glendale Position: Current president of commission Expenses: $11,718.32 *

Name: John C. Crowley* City: Pasadena Expenses: $10,765.53 *

Name: William Paparian City: Pasadena Expenses: $9,573.65 *

Name: Chris Holden City: Pasadena Expenses: $9,044.89 *

Name: Jo Heckman* City: Pasadena Expenses: $8,801.75 *

Name: George Battey Jr.* City: Burbank Expenses: $8,683.68 *

Name: Robert R. Bowne* City: Burbank Expenses: $8,075.28 *

Name: Joyce Streator City: Pasadena Expenses: $6,293.77 *

Name: Michael Hastings* City: Burbank Expenses: $4,266.28 *

Name: David K. Robinson* City: Pasadena Expenses: $3,078.31 *

Name: Carl Meseck City: Glendale Expenses: $2,207.15

AIRPORT STAFF Name: Tom Greer Position: Airport executive director Expenses: $5,903.29 *

Name: Elly Mixsell* Position: Former manager of community relations Expenses: $4,595.12 *

Name: Dios Marrero Position: Controller Expenses: $1,780 *

Name: Dee Marlette Position: Administrative assistant Expenses: $1,570 *

Name: Victor Gill Position: Public relations director Expenses: $1,125 *

Name: Dan Feger Position: Director of engineering and planning Expenses: $121 Note: Figures include expenses by some spouses. Burbank has three newly named commissioners who have not traveled at airport expense.

* Former commissioners and staff

Source: Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority