Burbank Airport Controversy

Your “Safety Remains the Issue” editorial of Jan. 9 is the other shoe dropping again.

After the “closed-door” framework agreement was received with outrage from so many, the only commentary we were getting was sly distortions in The Times Valley Edition. Please don’t distort the safety issue and Federal Aviation Administration requirement of moving the terminal away from a runway, with the “need for more gates and flights” the airport authority keeps pushing. The sneaky eastward ban had nothing to do with the FAA safety edict, but more jets over the ever-increasing people density in the same airspace has a lot to do with your moral obligations to the community.

JACK ABRAMS

North Hollywood

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It has been a long time coming but we are very grateful that [Federal Aviation Administrator Jane] Garvey has finally realized that the many thousands of residents south of the Burbank Airport are an important part of the airport expansion equation. To her credit, she properly chides the city of Burbank and the authority for ignoring the legitimate concerns of the city of Los Angeles and others in their rush to formulate the deeply flawed framework for resolution.

We would have been even more gratified had she pledged her office to get more involved in this issue--there is still the danger that Burbank and the authority will continue to ignore the needs of the communities surrounding the airport. Indeed, the responses from the city of Burbank and the authority, reported elsewhere, were curiously dismissive; were I one of them, I would be wondering how I could approve a framework that the FAA so clearly disfavors. In fact, I thought the promise of Burbank and the authority was that failure of any part of the deal was cause to start anew. Are they going to renege on that promise?

In any event, it seems this deal may not be forced down our throats as easily as first believed; it ain’t over until the FAA lady sings.

CHRISTOPHER BARNES

Studio City