BURBANK VOTE COMPLICATES AIRPORT GROWTH PLANS.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Staff Writer

BURBANK - While Burbank voters gave themselves veto power over any Burbank Airport expansion plan negotiated by the city and the Airport Authority, officials outside Burbank said Measure B will hamper the process.

Voters on Tuesday cast 26,701 votes for Measure B, or 80 percent, and 6,567 votes, or 19 percent, against it, according to unofficial final returns. Burbank officials said Wednesday the requirement that a plan be approved by voters before it can be implemented is democracy at work.

``This was a proposition that allowed voters to take back control of the future,'' Vice Mayor Bob Kramer said. ``It's pretty obvious to me that people want the final say. That's the way it should be.''

But Chris Holden, an airport commissioner from Pasadena, said Measure B will be an obstacle to replacing a 70-year-old airport terminal the authority says is dangerously close to the runway. He said it politicizes an already contentious issue.

``The bottom line is, I don't know that it represents putting us closer to building a safety replacement terminal,'' he said.

Both sides said they don't expect a deal soon.

Howard Rothenbach, chairman of Restore Our Airport Rights, said the group was pleased with the Measure B results. But ROAR will continue its effort to qualify its own initiative to require that any deal have a mandatory nightly curfew and a cap on future flights and passengers.

``We now have an empty grocery bag and ROAR is going to put something in it,'' he said. ``We're going to put a curfew and a cap inside. It's going to make it stronger.''