Panel Votes to Expand Burbank Airport Facilities

To comply with new federal safety requirements, Burbank Airport commissioners voted Monday to begin expanding terminal facilities even if it means violating a city law that prohibits new construction.

The $24.5 million in contracts that the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority awarded Monday means that construction of a 40,000-square-foot expansion project may start as early as this week, said spokesman Victor Gill.

The expansion is necessary, Gill said, to accommodate beefed-up luggage-screening technology and improved passenger checkpoints mandated by the Transportation Security Administration to be implemented by the end of the year.

However, Burbank’s voter-approved Measure A so severely restricts any airport expansion that it amounts to a moratorium on permits for any new construction.

“We have a major responsibility to make the airport as safe as we can,” said Jerry Briggs, who was among the six airport commissioners who voted in favor of awarding the contracts without first obtaining the building permits to expand the 173,000-square-foot terminal to 213,000 square feet.

Fellow Commissioner John Crowley said, “Assume you’re walking along a beach and you see someone drowning. A sign says city ordinance prohibits swimming. Do you obey the sign, or do you save that person ... and jump in?”

The airport was caught “between a rock and a hard place,” said commission Vice President Charles Lombardo, one of two who opposed Monday’s action; a third member, Don Brown, abstained.

Lombardo said he is personally against Measure A, but “there’s still a law on the books that the people of Burbank voted for.”

“There’s a federal mandate,” he added. “Then you have a conflict with local law.”

The city of Burbank has sued to overturn Measure A, and a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has scheduled a hearing on Friday.

Lombardo said the airport should wait until the court resolves the legality of Measure A, which he thought could take place within two weeks. But other commissioners feared the litigation could drag out.

Construction crews will need to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to complete the expansion in time to accommodate the new safety requirements by year’s end, so there’s no time for delay, Gill said.

The airport commission’s action raised eyebrows at Burbank City Hall.

“As long as Measure A is the law of the land, there can be no building permits for the airport,” said City Manager Bud Ovrom.

“I’ve never heard of a contractor who would do work without a permit,” he added.

Measure A, which Burbank voters approved in November, prohibits any expansion or remodeling of the airport unless the airport imposes a 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew on all flights and caps all future aircraft operations and passenger growth of the airport at 10%.

But under federal law, the airport cannot impose such restrictions without doing an extensive study, which is underway, Gill said.

“The whole airport issue is a mess,” Lombardo said, adding that as a commissioner, “you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”