Burbank City Hall

Molly Shore For his 91st birthday on June 28, Burbank resident John Livingston gave himself a painting. A great big painting. Livingston, who has been working in oils since his retirement from Lockheed in 1975, has just completed a 24-foot-long, 8-foot-high mural on his neighbor's garage, which backs up to Livingston's property. He said he got tired of looking at the back of the garage, so with his neighbor's permission Livingston painted a scene of a location in the High Sierras that is special to him. "It's our favorite fishing spot," he said of the bend in the Owens River beneath Mt. Tom where he, his sons and grandsons go fishing.

Joyce Rudolph, Weekend GLENDALE -- Debbie Reynolds blushed recalling the day she left her mark on Burbank City Hall. A majorette in the high school band, Reynolds was twirling her baton during opening ceremonies for the new city hall. "I threw the baton up as high as I could," said the cherub-faced Reynolds, snuggled comfortably in a fourth-row chair of The Alex Theatre. "The baton went up and crashed through the mayor's window," she said. "The mayor was standing right in front of me, and everybody was laughing."

As Burbank begins its centennial festivities, we need to remember that what we're really celebrating is 100 years of self government. And the "kick-off" event is the election for City Council and Burbank Unified School District Board of Education on Feb. 22. As part of this election, the League of Women Voters Glendale/Burbank will be presenting a candidate forum at 7 p.m. Jan. 19 in the City Council chambers. Timed to occur just before the all mail-in ballots go into the mail, and rebroadcast on Burbank TV6 and streamed on the Burbank TV website, it gives all our citizens many opportunities to watch the forum and make an informed judgment on how they want to vote.

Stepping onto the marble floor and hearing the click of heels echo under Burbank City Hall's rotunda is like stepping onto a bridge that takes travelers back to the 1940s, a time when city officials erected buildings of architectural beauty. Not much has changed since Burbank's 77-foot-tall model of art deco splendor first swung its doors open, dedicated by Mayor Walter Hinton on Feb. 12, 1942. But there have been just a few tweaks to the hallowed hall.

BURBANK — The Los Angeles Healthy Air Walk will be held in Burbank this year because of the city’s high marks in the American Lung Assn. of California’s 2008 State of Tobacco Control local report card, which rated 88 cities on their efforts to combat secondhand smoke. Burbank was one of three cities to receive an A grade, along with Calabasas and Baldwin Park. Almost half of the rated cities received below-average grades, with 40 cities receiving an F — one of which was La Cañada Flintridge.

Candidates in the April 13 special primary election to fill a vacancy in the 43rd Assembly District will head to Burbank City Hall at 7 tonight for a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Glendale/Burbank. The following are brief descriptions of each of the four candidates, three of whom have never served in public office. If no candidate receives more than 50% of votes, the election will proceed to a runoff contest June 8 between the top vote-getters from each party.

Claudia Peschiutta BURBANK -- After two years of decline, the number of homeless people in the area is on the rise and the three men hoping to represent the district in the state Senate have various solutions to offer. Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-La Crescenta) supports providing job training through efforts such as CAL-Works, the state's welfare-to-work program, and believes more needs to be done to care for the mentally ill. His Republican opponent for the 21st District seat, South Pasadena City Councilman Paul Zee, considers job training "the ultimate solution."

Craig Bullock The City Council officially unveiled two restored murals on Sept. 10 that are in the renovated interior of City Hall. This long overdue restoration removed years of grime and corrected poorly implemented alterations that the murals, unfortunately, suffered over the years. The murals now can be seen in their entirety for the first time in over three decades, and these magnificent works of art celebrate the spirit of freedom and our own city.

CHARITY LEAGUE GATHERS FOOD ITEMS FOR NEEDY National Charity League, Burbank Chapter members and their daughters collected nonperishable items the recently at the Burbank Pavilions. They collected 1,196 items valued at $3,337. The mothers and daughters participating were Patty and Alex DeGrazzio , Kim and Nor Kurasz , Cathy and Savannah Stevens, Jackie and Samantha Kelley, Kris and Nicole Coblentz, Amanda and Pat Copping and Rachel and Rilla Raad .   CIVIC PRIDE COMMITTEE SEEKING HOLIDAY ENTRIES The Burbank Civic Pride Committee invites all local residents and businesses to enter the 25th annual Holiday Outdoor Decorating Contest.

Spend money on services instead of fighting prayer Hooray to the Supreme Court for their decisive rejection of Burbank's moronic appeal to allow sectarian prayer at council meetings, and an even bigger hooray to the late Irv Rubin for his courageous insistence that Burbank show some sense and mend its ways. Once, I attended a council meeting during the early 1990s and was appalled to see a local preacher abuse his privilege by spending over five minutes proselytizing to the captured audience with his blatantly stated "witnessing to Christ."