FAA Takes Peacemaker Role in Airport Expansion Dispute

Both sides in the long, bitter fight over a new terminal for Burbank Airport said they were heartened by private meetings Tuesday with Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey, who pledged that her agency would take an active--but not dominant--role as peacemaker.

Garvey met for three hours at the Burbank Airport Hilton with congressional representatives, state lawmakers, officials of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, Burbank city leaders, local homeowners and airport industry representatives.

The airport authority wants to build a larger terminal, partly for safety reasons and partly because of the airport’s popularity with air travelers. That has generated vociferous protests from Burbank homeowners and the Burbank city government that the new terminal will lead to more aircraft noise. The issue has been fought in political and legal arenas for years.

On Tuesday, after meeting separately with the opposing groups--to avoid confrontations in her presence--Garvey vowed that the FAA would “keep every option on the table” and announced the appointment of her deputy chief of staff, Marie Therese Dominguez, as the FAA’s point person to deal with Burbank and Los Angeles airport problems.

How much of a role Dominguez will play and how much time she will devote to each airport’s problems will emerge over time, Garvey said. “We want to make this work,” she said, but warned: “It’s got to be solved locally.”