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Council discusses baggage facility
By Jeremy Oberstein
CITY HALL — Councilman David Gordon continued to call for a re-examination of the proposed baggage facility at Bob Hope Airport during the City Council meeting Tuesday, citing an apparent inconsistency from the Transportation Security Administration.
But the council, by a 3-to-1 vote, rebuffed Gordon’s attempt.
“Our legal opinion has not changed,” City Atty. Dennis Barlow said.
The facility in question, which the council approved in January, is a blast-hardened, 6,500-square-foot baggage facility that would house a new luggage screening apparatus adjacent to Terminal B.
Supporters of the facility maintain that by removing the inspection of luggage from the vicinity of the public — now completed inside the lobby of Terminal B — they are improving passenger security.
But opponents of the proposal, including Gordon, said the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority never received an explicit federal mandate to construct the facility, something they say is required by the city’s 2005 development agreement with the airport that prohibits terminal expansion.
A recent letter from a TSA official to Gordon seemed to bolster the councilman’s claim that the authority never received a mandate.
“As to the allegation that TSA issued an ‘explicit mandate’ to Bob Hope Airport, let me assure you that no one at any level did so,” wrote Adam Tsao, chief of staff in the office of operational process and technology.
Justification for moving forward with the facility — and the correspondence that ignited the mandate-versus-no mandate debate nearly one year ago — centered on a July 31, 2007, letter from Assistant Federal Security Director Blanca Morales, who wrote that the current space allocated to the TSA to conduct baggage screening at Terminal B is “inadequate” and a “security concern.”
Her findings, and the subsequent conclusion of the airport and the city’s legal counsel, were used as evidence that the authority did receive a mandate.
Officials at the airport, including Burbank Airport Commissioner Charles Lombardo, said Morales’ statement was enough justification to move forward with the project.
“The TSA does not issue federal explicit mandates due to their liability and the fact they would have to pay for the whole facility,” he said. “Morales told us what operational elements are needed. Is that a directive? I think so. We needed a directive, not a mandate.”
Lombardo’s comments come days after the airport commissioner returned from Washington D.C., where he and authority President and Glendale Commissioner Carl Povilaitis and Pasadena Commissioner Joyce Streator joined other airport leaders from around the country for a national legislative conference on airport issues.
While there, the three commission members met with Reps. Adam Schiff and Brad Sherman to enlist their support of the recently passed Part 161 Study, which calls for a mandatory curfew at the airport from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The representatives signaled their support for the curfew, which requires Federal Aviation Administration approval, Lombardo said.
They also met with Tsao to discuss the curfew and the baggage screening facility, he said. According to Lombardo, Tsao did not have prior knowledge of Burbank’s development agreement before Lombardo and the others brought it to his attention last week. But, due to council direction taken in January and the attorney’s findings, “he considers the matter closed,” Lombardo said.
The debate about the mandate was augmented Monday by the announcement from airport officials that the authority received a commitment from TSA for another CTX-9000 baggage screening machine for the facility.
On Friday, airport officials were surprised to learn from Morales that they would be receiving the additional machine to “bolster the project and supply the necessary resources that would provide redundancy and serve as a back-up system in case one goes out,” airport spokesman Victor Gill said.
Airport officials did not ask the TSA for the new machine, which costs between $2.8 million and $3 million and will be paid for by the Department of Homeland Security, Gill said.
Though Morales told airport officials of the machine Friday, the decision to add another apparatus was made two weeks ago, according to TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.
“This is not something we work with the airport to make happen,” he said. “We have folks that go from airport to airport and make decisions on what’s needed based on traffic and bags screened.”
The machines are due to be delivered to the airport by August, and the facility is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year.
But the council, by a 3-to-1 vote, rebuffed Gordon’s attempt.
“Our legal opinion has not changed,” City Atty. Dennis Barlow said.
The facility in question, which the council approved in January, is a blast-hardened, 6,500-square-foot baggage facility that would house a new luggage screening apparatus adjacent to Terminal B.
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But opponents of the proposal, including Gordon, said the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority never received an explicit federal mandate to construct the facility, something they say is required by the city’s 2005 development agreement with the airport that prohibits terminal expansion.
A recent letter from a TSA official to Gordon seemed to bolster the councilman’s claim that the authority never received a mandate.
“As to the allegation that TSA issued an ‘explicit mandate’ to Bob Hope Airport, let me assure you that no one at any level did so,” wrote Adam Tsao, chief of staff in the office of operational process and technology.
Justification for moving forward with the facility — and the correspondence that ignited the mandate-versus-no mandate debate nearly one year ago — centered on a July 31, 2007, letter from Assistant Federal Security Director Blanca Morales, who wrote that the current space allocated to the TSA to conduct baggage screening at Terminal B is “inadequate” and a “security concern.”
Her findings, and the subsequent conclusion of the airport and the city’s legal counsel, were used as evidence that the authority did receive a mandate.
Officials at the airport, including Burbank Airport Commissioner Charles Lombardo, said Morales’ statement was enough justification to move forward with the project.
“The TSA does not issue federal explicit mandates due to their liability and the fact they would have to pay for the whole facility,” he said. “Morales told us what operational elements are needed. Is that a directive? I think so. We needed a directive, not a mandate.”
Lombardo’s comments come days after the airport commissioner returned from Washington D.C., where he and authority President and Glendale Commissioner Carl Povilaitis and Pasadena Commissioner Joyce Streator joined other airport leaders from around the country for a national legislative conference on airport issues.
While there, the three commission members met with Reps. Adam Schiff and Brad Sherman to enlist their support of the recently passed Part 161 Study, which calls for a mandatory curfew at the airport from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The representatives signaled their support for the curfew, which requires Federal Aviation Administration approval, Lombardo said.
They also met with Tsao to discuss the curfew and the baggage screening facility, he said. According to Lombardo, Tsao did not have prior knowledge of Burbank’s development agreement before Lombardo and the others brought it to his attention last week. But, due to council direction taken in January and the attorney’s findings, “he considers the matter closed,” Lombardo said.
The debate about the mandate was augmented Monday by the announcement from airport officials that the authority received a commitment from TSA for another CTX-9000 baggage screening machine for the facility.
On Friday, airport officials were surprised to learn from Morales that they would be receiving the additional machine to “bolster the project and supply the necessary resources that would provide redundancy and serve as a back-up system in case one goes out,” airport spokesman Victor Gill said.
Airport officials did not ask the TSA for the new machine, which costs between $2.8 million and $3 million and will be paid for by the Department of Homeland Security, Gill said.
Though Morales told airport officials of the machine Friday, the decision to add another apparatus was made two weeks ago, according to TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.
“This is not something we work with the airport to make happen,” he said. “We have folks that go from airport to airport and make decisions on what’s needed based on traffic and bags screened.”
The machines are due to be delivered to the airport by August, and the facility is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year.
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