Fear and Loathing in Burbank
Expansion at the Burbank Airport has become so contentious that Burbank and Airport Authority officials have resorted to secrecy on the whereabouts of their negotiating sessions. Burbank officials want to see little or no expansion at the airport, while Airport Authority officials would like a relatively major expansion. Burbank was fighting the airport in court but held out an olive branch last month, when it approached the Airport Authority about negotiating a settlement. That move infuriated some of Burbank’s most vehement anti-expansionists, leading to numerous threats against both sides and the decision to keep negotiating venues anonymous, said Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom. “We’re not disclosing locations to avoid bomb threats,” joked Ovrom, adding that other less-menacing threats have indeed been received. Glendale Airport Commissioner Carl Raggio reported getting several ominous phone calls since negotiations reopened. “I do get the strange calls people telling you what they think of you and then hanging up,” Raggio said. “For example, I got one who told me, ‘You’re going to take Burbank away from me.’ ”
Screen Test
Among the many tasks facing Cindy Miscikowski, who this week will be sworn in as the Los Angeles City Council’s newest member, is hiring a staff, ordering stationery and arranging her office. But this being Tinsel Town, Miscikowski also has to go in for her screen test. Because the City Council’s meetings are broadcast on public access cable television, the council chamber’s video and sound systems have to be adjusted for Miscikowski’s skin tone, voice and the lighting over her chair in the council’s horseshoe. Each councilmember has his or her own color, lighting and sound set-up in the system. Only in L.A. does a lawmaker need not only the approval of the electorate, but also a producer.
Optimistic Father
During a speech last week at L.A.’s Four Seasons Hotel, former U.S. Housing Secretary Jack Kemp said that it is important for leaders whether they be business, world or family leaders to always be optimistic. To illustrate his point, Kemp said that his father had a trucking company in Los Angeles in the 1930s called “California Delivery Service” but that the company only had one truck. “Don’t tell me he wasn’t an optimist,” Kemp said.
Testing the goods
On his first visit to Los Angeles since becoming Secretary of Commerce in January, Robert Daley met with area manufacturing execs to hear their observations on the effectiveness of the California Manufacturing Technology Center, a federally administered agency that advises on how to improve quality at U.S. factories. One company that didn’t attend was the Grover Products Co., a Los Angeles company that makes horns for trucks and aluminum baseball bats. Grover company officials wanted to send along a token of their thanks for the help they had received from the Technology Center. Rather than a letter, they sent an engraved baseball bat, which a Technology Center official presented to Daley.
Accepting the bat at the head of a table full of executives, Daley swung it lightly as the seated men had a chuckle. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to use it here.” Later, as the execs lined up for photos with him, he picked up the bat and muttered “crowd control.”
