Airport Authority Accuses Burbank of Censorship

The Burbank Airport Authority accused the city of Burbank of censoring news programming on the city’s cable channel Friday. City officials denied any wrongdoing and said the charges were a public relations ploy in a long-running battle over airport expansion.

For the past month, a three-minute digest of airport news has been shown before broadcasts of Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority meetings on Channel 6 of Marcus Cable, the channel reserved for Burbank government programming.

But in an April 29 letter to airport Executive Director Tom Greer, Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom notified airport officials that the city was pulling the plug on the show, saying the authority needs City Council approval for any programming other than its meetings.

“Our authorization for you to use the government channel was intended to be for the cable casting of your Authority meetings,” Ovrom wrote. “Accordingly, the city will immediately cease allowing your non-meeting programs to be shown on the government channel. You are welcome to ask Council approval for non-meeting programming or to use the public access channel for these programs.”

Under the terms of its contract with the city, the cable TV company allows the council to govern what is shown on the city government channel.

Airport Authority spokesman Victor Gill called the move unfair.

“From a good sense of fair play, city officials are overstepping their bounds on this one,” Gill said. “The city has gone out of its way to create programming that is overtly hostile to the airport on the government channel.”

The Airport Authority and Burbank have waged a long and bitter political and legal battle over the authority’s plans to build a new passenger terminal at Burbank airport, expanding to 19 gates. Airport officials say the facility needs the terminal to accommodate increases in the numbers of passengers. City officials argue that restrictions are necessary to prevent increased levels of noise, traffic and pollution in surrounding neighborhoods.

The rhetoric has increased in the wake of a recent state court decision in which Superior Court Judge Carl J. West ruled that Burbank could not block the terminal project because the city had signed away the right to do so by agreeing to run the facility under a joint power agreement.

Burbank Mayor David Golonski reiterated Friday that the decision to pull the airport programming was not based on revenge or rhetoric, but on rules.

Approval by the council has been needed for all programming except broadcasts of the meetings of government bodies, he said, including “Street Beat” by the Police Department, “Chalk Talk” by the school district, and “Fighting Words” by Councilman Ted McConkey.

“They have all had to explain what they are proposing to do, their scheduling, and [they] must ensure they follow the parameters established for government access programs, which include prohibitions on using the access for political campaigning,” Golonski said.