Former Mayor William B. Rudell, who led the city and Bob Hope Airport through some of its most formative changes, died in his Burbank home Thursday. He was 69.
Rudell’s cause of death was not known Friday, but he was pronounced dead at his hillside house on the 1700 block of Rudell Drive, named after him years earlier, police said.
An attorney by trade, Rudell was first elected to the City Council in 1973, serving as the city’s mayor for two years before leading the airport for seven years.
His five years on the council resulted in a number of developments that raised the standard of living in Burbank and increased protection for the city’s hillside community, said Vincent Stefano, 69, a former Burbank two-term mayor who served with Rudell.
“He was a great guy,” Stefano said. “He was very bright, meticulous and just a pretty good guy. His passing is a great loss certainly to Burbank, but also to lots of people who were his friends and his enemies. He was respected by both friends and enemies.”
Rudell was born in 1939. He graduated from Burbank High School before finishing Princeton University near the top of his class in 1961 and enrolling in Yale Law School, which he completed in 1965. Rudell returned to California, was admitted to the state bar in 1969 and immediately flexed his civic muscle, first as a Planning Board member in 1970, then its chairman.
After his election to the council in 1973, a race that Stefano remembers fondly, Rudell helped lead the council by supporting or helping to pass a number of significant measures.
He was instrumental in acquiring federal revenue-sharing funds to protect Burbank’s hillside community and helped institute the city’s first paramedic services.
Rudell, along with other members of the council, also tried to forge a sense of modernity in Burbank, said Leland C. Ayers, a former mayor and airport commissioner.
“We sort of decided to make some changes to Burbank that would bring it into the 21st century,” Ayers said.
Those changes included approving a slew of new high-rise office buildings, redeveloping downtown and instituting the Media City Center, still thriving today.
“I think he’s certainly a loss to the city,” said Ayers, 75. “He was one of the strongest councilmen and mayors I came across while on the City Council. I respected him a great deal.”
