Charles Lombardo
Burbank Airport Commissioner Charles Lombardo addressed the City
Council Tuesday to argue as a private citizen against placing the Restore
Our Airport Rights initiative on a public ballot. The initiative was
defeated by a vote of 3-2. The following is Lombardo's statement.
I am here to urge you not to place the Restore Our Airport Rights
Initiative on our ballot. To support my argument, I'll use an example I
believe Burbank residents may readily understand.
Instead of the ROAR Initiative, let's say someone started a petition
to ban non-Burbank residents from speaking at oral communications. And by
singing the petition, you are promised only Burbank residents can ever
address this Council again.
Do you think someone could get fifty-two hundred signatures to get it
on a ballot? Absolutely. Do you think Burbank voters might approve it?
Most likely. Would it be thrown out of Court the day after passage as
unconstitutional? Of course it would.
You are being led down a primrose path if you think the ROAR
Initiative will guarantee the restrictions contained within it?
It is the same as a petition banning non-residents guarantees they
will ever address this council again. That would be a lie. I know that.
So to, do the authors of the ROAR initiative know what they promise is
untrue. They do not have the power, standing or legal jurisdiction to
deliver or enforce its demands. If this Council places the ROAR.
Initiative on the ballot instead of its authors, it still will not make
it Constitutional.
Would this Council put an initiative on a ballot knowing it was
defective, because someone had obtained a certain number of signatures?
You wouldn't. So why are you considering placing the ROAR Initiative on
the ballot? Its authors know, or should know, that it is
unconstitutional.
Have we forgotten that the Airport Authority thought it didn't have to
comply with the Public Utilities Code? You didn't need a law degree to
know they were going to lose that case. The same as if we think the ROAR
Initiative is going to go unchallenged by many different entities.
Burbank has spent millions of dollars to validate and uphold the PUC
Section as well as other issues. The ROAR initiative says Burbank can
ignore state and federal law. We are saying to the Federal Aviation
Administration, we don't have to do a Part 161 study to get a mandatory
nighttime curfew. We have an initiative that grants that to us. We are
telling the state of California that we don't have to complete a PUC
