Complaints

CITY CENTER — A Burbank police captain on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit against the city, alleging he was unfairly demoted from his post as deputy chief after he tried to compel the command staff to address a series of internal complaints. Capt. Bill Taylor, known by many in the city as the moral compass of the Police Department, filed the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles Superior Court, the latest in a series of police-related legal woes that have struck Burbank.

CITY HALL — A review by two Burbank residents who oppose a proposed baggage facility at Bob Hope Airport was denied 3-2 Tuesday by the City Council, which backed the tri-cities airport board that called the project a vital tool for improving airport security. Stan Hyman and David Piroli filed complaints with the city on the grounds that the 4,500-square-foot baggage facility, meant to house a new luggage screening apparatus, violated both the development agreement that guards against terminal expansion and a section of the Burbank Municipal Code concerning airport construction.

BURBANK — In response to a district administrative secretary’s sexual harassment lawsuit against the Burbank Unified School District and its director of facilities, the district’s attorney has filed a motion in Los Angeles County Superior Court to strike the complaint, calling it frivolous. “The complaint as a whole . . .amounts to a ‘frivolous pleading’ . . . given that the allegations contained therein are totally and completely without merit,” according to the motion, which school district attorney Nancy P. Doumanian filed Friday.

GLENDALE — A Glendale Public Works employee was one of several plaintiffs Tuesday who joined in the growing front of legal action against Metrolink for the September commuter train crash in Chatsworth that killed 25 and injured 135 others. Public Works Administrator Mike Wiederkehr joined at least five other passengers injured in the Sept. 12 crash in filing a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday against the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which operates Metrolink, and two subcontractors, seeking punitive damages and compensation for medical expenses.

GLENDALE — A Glendale Public Works employee was one of several plaintiffs Tuesday who joined in the growing front of legal action against Metrolink for the September commuter train crash in Chatsworth that killed 25 and injured 135 others. Public Works Administrator Mike Wiederkehr joined at least five other passengers injured in the Sept. 12 crash in filing a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday against the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which operates Metrolink, and two subcontractors, seeking punitive damages and compensation for medical expenses.

State election officials this week confirmed they are investigating claims that Democrat Chahe Keuroghelian, a former candidate for the 43rd Assembly District, failed to file proper campaign disclosure reports. Glendale resident Heather Chetian filed the complaint alleging that Keuroghelian failed to meet the 24-hour deadline for reporting money raised through a telethon on AMGA Channel 280, and that the candidate supplemented his campaign through independent expenditures financed by "operatives" of Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake)

BURBANK — The Environmental Protection Agency has filed a complaint against a metal-processing company in Burbank, citing hazardous-waste violations at its facility on Spazier Avenue. The complaint alleges that by-products of metal plating work from All Metals Processing Co. are seeping through the inside walls of the facility into the ground within 10 feet of a nearby storm-water canal. The company offers plating services for metals, said EPA spokesman Dean Higuchi. "A lot of companies — whether they do metal plating or they process metals — do use hazardous materials that when they're spent and they're used, they then become classified as hazardous wastes," he said.

BURBANK — Proceedings for a sexual harassment suit filed in June against the Burbank Unified School District will continue despite the district’s attempt to have the case thrown out, according to court documents filed Monday. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne O’Donnell denied the district’s request for the suit to be stricken. In response to the sexual harassment suit filed by district secretary Danielle Baez against the district and director of facilities Craig Jellison in June, the district’s attorney, Nancy P. Doumanian, filed a motion in late September in Los Angeles County Superior Court to strike the complaint, calling it frivolous.

BURBANK — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a nearly $1-million complaint against 99 Cents Only Stores alleging the company violated a federal act when it sold and distributed two unregistered pesticides in its stores throughout California. The EPA is asking for $969,930 in civil penalties from the company after it sold the unregistered pesticides — Farmer’s Secret Berry and Produce Cleaner, and Bref Limpieza y Desinfeccion Total — in several of its stores.