Offer Is Still on the Table

The long-running battle over a new Burbank Airport terminal moved from the negotiating table back to the courtroom, but it’s not the dire setback the city of Burbank is painting it to be. The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which runs the airport on behalf of the three cities, left an olive branch on the table even as airport lawyers appealed the May 5 appellate court decision that prompted the peace offering.

The May 5 ruling said that the Airport Authority could not develop a new terminal site without the city of Burbank’s approval. Burbank had objected to the size of the terminal. So in late May, the Airport Authority set out to gain Burbank’s approval by submitting plans for a scaled-down terminal.

How refreshing it was to see one side have the sense to go back to the drawing board rather than on to the state Supreme Court. Good sense has not been especially abundant in this years-long squabble. Lawyers, on the other hand, have been all over the place.

Unfortunately, they still are. The airport’s decision to appeal the appellate court ruling after all was prompted by yet another lawsuit, this one over how much to pay for the land the authority wants for its new terminal. Earlier this month, a jury ordered the authority to pay Lockheed Martin $86 million for the site--more than the authority wanted to pay but not enough to scuttle the project.

But that ruling is complicated by the May 5 ruling. Does the authority buy the land and risk throwing good money after bad if Burbank later says no to a terminal? Does it try to back out of the deal, and likely end up paying millions of dollars in damages? Would the judge, who had begun hearing the case before the May 5 ruling, decide he couldn’t move the sale forward if the earlier ruling was final?

We’re as tired of lawyers running the show as anyone, but the airport’s last-minute appeal--which at least postpones the ruling becoming final--seems less an act of brinkmanship than an act of desperation. It’s about buying time to keep the plan for a new terminal from unraveling entirely. Or at least that’s what airport officials say. They also say their offer of a scaled-down terminal is still on the table.

Burbank can have a say in restricting the size of the terminal. Its other demand--a mandated nighttime flight curfew--is up to the Federal Aviation Administration, not the Airport Authority. A study required for such a curfew already is underway. What else is left to gain by brinkmanship? What’s to lose by not blinking is a new terminal the airport needs.