ROAR Airport Initiative
* Re “Measure Doesn’t Fly,†April 8.
The Times’ editorial on Restore Our Airport Rights’ (ROAR’s) initiative should have gone through a few more preflight checks before The Times let fly.
First, your oblique reference to the trust issue is the crux of the matter, although you give it short shrift. Had Burbank’s leaders not cut a back-room deal that essentially sold the city and its neighbors short on the most important aspects of the airport development, they might have sustained higher credibility with ROAR and its constituents.
Trust is earned; clearly Burbank’s leaders need to earn that trust again.
Second, while you quote Charlie Lombardo favorably, you quote ROAR’s Ted McConkey with disdain bordering on contempt. The Times has no more proof that Burbank won’t be able to build a “new sewer pipe without voter approval†than they have any disproof of ROAR’s contentions. Opine as you will, but please base it on facts.
Finally, you overstate both the deal that Burbank obtained with the Airport Authority and the affected communities’ alleged failure to compromise with the Authority. Burbank, as represented by the numerous citizens who voiced their extreme displeasure with the deal, did not get “everything it asked for.†The Times is either being disingenuous or unintentionally humorous when it suggests otherwise. And compromise has been the watchword for most everyone in the communities involved in this issue. It is only recently that the Authority has discovered that compromise is not a dirty word.
The original deal cut by Burbank was ill-conceived. ROAR’s initiative may not work. But certainly one can understand how the one led to the other. Rather than deriding ROAR, perhaps we can build on their work.
CHRISTOPHER BARNES
Studio City Residents Assn.
Airport Committee Chair
* Burbank residents seek not to “balkanize†but to avoid being “ghettoized.â€
If the ROAR initiative is illegal then why is it legal at John Wayne Airport in Orange County? Orange County’s airport has caps and curfews, which is what ROAR seeks to protect the residents of Burbank. Laws can and are changed every day in this country, and the right to petition your government is based on the Constitution, not the Federal Aviation Administration, airport interests and surrounding citizens who think it is OK to ruin our city for their own benefit.
Burbank bears the financial and environmental costs of this airport; we pay for the streets and . . . receive the pollution from users and airplanes in terms of traffic, disruption of our schools, our homes and our pocketbooks. The Times has demonstrated its own incompetence and ineptitude-by-press by simply repeating the arguments of special interests, including Glendale and Pasadena (which control the airport and bear none of the human costs).
Two years ago, as you say, Burbank got everything it wanted in the draft agreement. Wrong; that agreement written by the airport and the City Council gave the airport everything it wanted and ignored the only thing the residents wanted, which is caps and curfews.
The airport was allowed to operate in Burbank starting 20 years ago only because of a vote of the residents that included a cap on growth. The airport has been violating the law for 20 years. When would you suggest the residents have the right to control their neighborhoods and lives?
KATHLEEN WILLIAMS
Burbank
