City to Soften Curfew’s Impact on Cargo Flights : Burbank: Council stands firm on overall proposal, but will reword section pertaining to air freight companies.

Refusing to blink in its escalating battle over Burbank Airport, the City Council has reiterated its opposition to expansion unless a mandatory curfew on noisy flights is imposed first.

But facing a hostile audience at its meeting late Tuesday, Burbank City Council members voted to soften the impact of any such curfew on cargo flights.

More than 50 employees of air freight and other airport-related firms appeared to denounce the proposal--also opposed by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority--as a threat to their jobs.

“If they shut down nighttime operations, it will cost myself and other co-workers our jobs,” said Wendy Bowman, a marketing representative at Ameriflight Inc., a firm that transports bank documents around the country. “I mean the airport is my livelihood.”

Edson Gould, manager of Mercury Aviation, which services private jets and cargo planes in six hangars at the airport, explained its workers were motivated to voice their concerns when they perceived a mandatory curfew to be an increasing likelihood.

He said stricter measures against non-commercial craft flying out of Burbank during late night and early morning hours may force companies such as Mercury Aviation and Ameriflight to relocate.

“We don’t want to lose our jobs,” Gould said. “If there is a mandatory curfew, we will lose customers and the company will have to scale down.”

Better safeguards for non-commercial flights should be adopted in the city’s policy, Gould said.

Wesley P. Colvin, vice president of a cargo transport company affiliated with Ameriflight, agreed.

Burbank’s policy toward the airport, he said, should be based solely on aircraft noise standards--regardless of when those planes fly.

“Why would someone care about a plane flying [during the curfew hours] if they can’t hear it?” Colvin asked. “This policy is overreaching. It doesn’t address our concerns.”

Colvin said that his company, UCI DistributionPLUS, deals with a number of regional banks and pharmaceutical shipping companies that often require overnight deliveries to other states.

If a mandatory curfew were to be imposed, he said, those companies would have no choice but to fly their cargo out of other airports and, consequently, UCI would leave Burbank.

At stake was the exact wording of the city’s policy covering airport operations and expansion. After the concerns expressed, the council ordered changes.

Council members said although they don’t favor an expansion of cargo airlines at the airport, they ordered their staff to reword the condition in their policy that states that limiting, reducing or eliminating cargo airlines should be considered.

“We are not going to make a judgment statement about all cargo planes,” said council member Susan Spanos. “We do care, though, about how their flights are conducted and that will be the focal point [of the condition] rather than a total denouncement of all cargo flights.”

In a related matter, the council also weighed in on a controversy that erupted when the Airport Authority last week voted down a proposal to hire a consultant to pursue a mandatory curfew from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Carl W. Raggio Jr., president of the nine-member Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, ruled that a vote on hiring the consultant failed. One member abstained, and one was absent.

“The president of the authority [Raggio] ruled that the motion failed because it didn’t have five affirmative votes,” Burbank Commissioner Philip Berlin told council members. “But that was in error. He incorrectly interpreted the JPA.”

The authority has passed motions with a majority of four votes in the past but the Authority counsel, Richard Smith, said those motions are invalid and need ratification by five affirmative votes.

Smith said the JPA requires that the majority of commissioners must vote affirmatively, not the majority of commissioners present at the meeting.

“They are making up the rules as they go along,” said Berlin.

On the issue of tying expansion to a curfew Tuesday, only Burbank Councilman Bill Wiggins expressed reservations.

“It is too hard-line for me,” Wiggins said. “There is no room for compromise.”

The Authority, which oversees the airport’s operations, has asked airlines to voluntarily observe a takeoff curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., but two passenger airlines consistently ignore it.

An average of six cargo flights daily operate in violation of the voluntary curfew as well, airport officials said.

Except in rare instances, the FAA does not allow local officials to interfere with its power over nationwide air traffic control, and requires that public airports be open to all legitimate air traffic.