Burbank voters may decide issue of replacement terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport

The fate of a proposed 14-gate replacement terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport might be decided by Burbank voters in November.

The City Council last week voted 4-1, with Councilman David Gordon dissenting, to direct staff to draft the paperwork required to place Measure B on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

Under the initiative, voters would have to approve plans to construct a replacement terminal on a site northeast of the airfield known as the B-6 parcel — where the city holds an easement on the property.

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority plans to build a 355,000-square-foot terminal on the B-6 site. Should the ballot measure fail, airport officials plan to build either a similar-sized terminal on the southwest corner of the airfield, which would not require voter approval because the airport owns that property.

All options were reviewed in the environmental-impact report for the project, which awaits final approval by the City Council that is expected Monday night. A development agreement and a zoning amendment allowing the airport authority to use the easement for the proposed terminal are also slated for a final vote on Monday as well.

Gordon said city officials should not be approving any agreements with the airport authority until the terminal project has been approved by voters.

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But City Atty. Amy Albano noted in a June 2015 memorandum on the proposed Measure B initiative that “a discretionary act or agreement by the city for a relocated or expanded airport terminal project must be approved by the voters before the discretionary act or agreement is valid and effective.”

She added, however, that “this does not mean that the City Council cannot take any action until the voters vote. If that were true, that the voters must act before the council, then what would they be voting on?” Albano wrote. “Rather, the council must define the scope of the agreements or other discretionary acts subject to the Measure B vote.”

Albano said that if the City Council approves the agreements and the Measure B vote fails, the agreements will be considered void.Gordon said he disagreed with his colleagues placing the initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot because it requires a special election.

He argued that the April 2017 municipal election would be the more appropriate time to have Burbank residents decide on whether they want a new terminal.

“There’s absolutely no rush for this to go on the November election,” he said. “The earliest estimates I’ve seen about this terminal realistically taking form, wherever it’s placed on the property, is four to seven years.”

Gordon said placing measure on the Nov. 8 ballot is too expensive.

City Clerk Zizette Mullins estimated that the cost for the special election to be about $119,000. However, she recommended that the city also mail a 10-page supplemental booklet to voters to inform them of the project. The supplemental mailers would cost an additional $74,200 to mail to each registered voter in the city — about $57,000 for the book itself and about $17,200 for the postage.

The total cost would be roughly $193,200.

Mullins said the entire cost of the April 2017 municipal election, including the ballot measure, is estimated at about $133,000.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Carpio writes for Times Community News.

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