BURBANK – Even After Crash, Burbank Airport Expansion Stalled

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When a Southwest Airlines commuter jet ran off the runway at Burbank Airport and smashed into a nearby gas station on March 5, it made more than a dramatic visual on the nightly news: It provided more ammunition for airport officials who want a new terminal.

Burbank’s air terminal is 400 feet closer to the runways than is deemed safe by the Federal Aviation Administration, and airport officials have argued for years that the old terminal is an accident waiting to happen. Now they hope the FAA and others will take notice.

“(The safety issue) has become palpable since the accident. You can certainly sense it,” said Victor Gill, an airport spokesman. “Whether it will cause any fundamental change in attitude (on the part of the FAA or other policy makers), I don’t know the answer.”

The crash is only a new twist on a seemingly never-ending fight over airport expansion. When Burbank Airport and the city of Burbank last August hammered out a compromise to allow development of a new air terminal, officials on both sides said the decades-long controversy appeared headed for resolution.

But with the compromise under fire from the airlines, political leaders and the FAA, it’s clear the flap is anything but over.

Standoff enters seventh week

Burbank officials are refusing to process the airport’s development plans until the FAA gives its nod to the compromise plan, dubbed the “framework agreement.” But that agreement calls for the nighttime closure of the air terminal, and the FAA is precluded by federal law from doing anything to impede air commerce.

As the standoff between the city and the FAA enters its seventh week, officials on both sides are asking the perennial question: Will the outdated and overcrowded 1930s-era air terminal ever be replaced?

“Absent some kind of commitment from the FAA, I don’t know that the city can move forward,” said Peter Kirsch, special counsel to the city of Burbank. “The FAA has made its view clear. Its tone has been critical if not outright hostile to the framework agreement.”

A group calling itself Restore Our Airport Rights, or ROAR, submitted 7,400 signatures to the Burbank City Clerk on March 14 in an effort to place a measure on the February 2001 ballot. The group seeks to bar the City Council from approving an air terminal exceeding 200,000 square feet and wants to impose a curfew on flights between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., in addition to a 10 percent cap on the growth of flights and passengers.

The next day, City Clerk Judie Sarquiz informed ROAR members she would have to reject the signatures because the group failed to identify its officers on the petitions, as required by law.

“She feels horrible about it, but she doesn’t have any choice,” said Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom. “It goes back to these being well-intentioned amateurs.”

Ovrom said if the measure ever makes the ballot, it will have a good chance of being approved by the voters. “Everything they ask for is everything people want: a smaller terminal, a curfew and cap on flights,” he said.

However, he doubts the measure would sustain scrutiny in the courts.

Burbank Mayor Stacey Murphy last month announced that the city would suspend work on the development agreement for a new terminal and fired off an angry letter to the FAA after the agency’s director, Jane Garvey, criticized the compromise in a letter to an area newspaper.

Mysterious response by FAA

In her letter, Garvey indicated that parts of the expansion deal might violate federal law, but didn’t specify which parts of the agreement might be problematic.

Murphy and Burbank officials were angered because during an earlier visit to Burbank, Garvey had urged the city and the airport to work together to find a compromise, and now she was criticizing the result.

Garvey has yet to say specifically what’s wrong with the agreement. Paul Turk, an FAA spokesman, would say only that local governments can’t impose any regulations that might restrict air commerce. But he too declined to say specifically how the framework agreement may be at odds with the law.

City and airport officials suspect that Garvey is opposed to a provision in the agreement that calls for closure of the air terminal from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., a proposal that has come under vehement attack by the airline industry.

“There’s no question the framework agreement violates federal law,” said Roger Cohen, managing director of government affairs for the Air Transport Association, an airline-industry group. “The nighttime shutdown of the air terminal is a de facto ban on nighttime flights. And in no way, shape or form can you have any local agreement or ordinance that violates the letter of the law.”

The city of Burbank has for years attempted to win a nighttime ban on flights at Burbank Airport to satisfy residents concerned about aircraft noise. But federal regulations make it all but impossible to win such restrictions.

Murphy said it will be costly for the city to process the airport’s development plan, which calls for a new 14-gate terminal more than 700 feet from the runway. So until the FAA is ready to commit to approving the compromise, it would be futile to proceed with the terminal plan.

Burbank city and airport officials are scheduled to meet with Garvey on April 7 in an effort to revive the stalled terminal plan.

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