BURBANK AIRPORT FLAP GOES TO FAA.

Byline: Beth Barrett Daily News Staff Writer

Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman declared Friday that it was D-Day for resolving the long-running dispute that has prevented building a new - and safer - terminal at Burbank Airport.

The San Fernando Valley lawmakers told a summit on Los Angeles area airport issues, sponsored by the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, that they would lead a federal assault on the legal, political and jurisdictional walls that have tied up expansion of the Valley's largest commercial airport for more than a decade.

``The Cold War has ended and the deficit has been eliminated, but the fight over Burbank Airport has gone on,'' said Berman, D-Mission Hills.

Berman said Jane F. Garvey, an official with the Federal Aviation Administration, will come to Los Angeles on Aug. 11 to act as broker between the city of Burbank and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority in an effort to get past technical, legal and other obstacles that have blocked construction of a new terminal. Her job will be to mediate, not dictate a solution, he added.

``We decided let's get the FAA out here,'' he said. ``We have to come to grips with this. She'll be here to get this issue off the dime.''

Sherman, D-Woodland Hills, agreed, saying he is convinced the federal government has more options than so far explored to help end the standoff, which centers around such thorny issues as mandated curfews, noise and growth at the airport.

Still, in the event of a deadlock should those avenues be exhausted, Congress likely would have to serve as arbiter, said Bradley Mims, who represented Garvey at the summit.

``That kind of pressure would have to come from Congress,'' said Mims, the FAA's assistant administrator for government and industry affairs.

Sherman said lawmakers have not ruled out such a maneuver, but added it would be easier to negotiate a settlement that enjoys local consensus, which in turn could be formalized through legislation.

A broader assault almost certainly would ignite a nationwide fight over the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990, which established a national airport policy amid widespread aviation concern over nonuniform local standards.

The politicians' intervention appeared to catch both camps off guard, perhaps because most of their skirmishing has been through lawyers in courtrooms.

Howard Rothenbach, a railroad machinist and member of Citizens United of Burbank, said he wasn't really sure how to interpret the federal interest, except to believe it might ``be a good start.''

Rothenbach, who said he routinely hears the roar of cargo planes over his home in the Burbank hills, said he just wants ``somebody who'll consider our concerns, who'll give weight to them.''

The organization is aligned with residents who want a mandatory 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew and the growth of flights capped at 10 percent.

Those are conditions airport officials say are beyond their control and would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve under federal law.

Berman, who said he hears the jets from his own home, criticized the Airport Authority's argument as indicative of an entrenched position that could make a solution more difficult.

``It will take years and years unless the authority changes its perspective and quits pushing off flight and curfew issues by saying the FAA won't let us do that,'' he said.

Victor Gill, the Airport Authority's spokesman, said it is hard for him to understand that logic, since it is the authority that wants to build the new terminal. He said the curfew is not the problem, but rather the federal law that restricts the authority from agreeing to one.

As such, the authority expects, as Gill put it, ``Burbank will have to budge more.''