CASE AGAINST BURBANK AIRPORT COMMISSIONERS DROPPED.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Prosecutors said Friday they will not press charges against current and former Burbank Airport commissioners who were accused by a Burbank councilman of taking their spouses on airport-funded junkets.

``There is insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent,'' said Deputy District Attorney Allen Field, the supervisor of the special investigations division for the Los Angeles County district attorney.

``These are prominent people in the community,'' he said. ``You don't want to make untoward allegations against them. As far as we know, no one took more money than they were entitled to.''

The investigation started in fall 1994, when the District Attorney's Office received a complaint filed by Ted McConkey, then an airport gadfly but now a member of the Burbank City Council.

McConkey said Friday he was furious about the district attorney's decision.

``The district attorney has in effect issued a license to steal,'' McConkey said. ``They verified every allegation I made and found some more. They bent over backward to erect a defense for these people.''

Although no charges were filed, in the conclusion of his report on the 18-month investigation, Field took Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority staffers to task for making life cushy for the publicly appointed airport commissioners.

In some instances, he wrote, they altered documents in order to hide the fact that family members were joining commissioners on flights.

``Time and time again witnesses have claimed that the source of the problems of the false documentation and public expenditures for the commissioners' wives' travel stemmed from . . . Airport Authority staff maintaining airport management and operations as if it were still a private business and not a public entity responsible to the citizenry,'' Field wrote.

Created in 1977, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority is a government entity run with public funds generated by fees paid by airlines. Three airport commissioners are appointed by the city councils from the three member cities.

The district attorney's investigation centered on airport expenses by commissioners between Jan. 1, 1992, and May 31, 1995.

Acting on a request by the district attorney's special investigation unit, the Los Angeles County grand jury subpoenaed expense reports for nine current and former commissioners.

Airport records show that over the three-year period in question, commissioners and some of their spouses ran up tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

For example, in September 1992, former airport Commissioner John Crowley from Pasadena, along with his wife, flew first class to a conference in Maui at a cost of $4,403.63 billed to the airport. Three of the bigger spenders were former Burbank Airport Authority President Brian Bowman, who left the panel in May 1995 and spent $15,929; Glendale representative Robert Garcin, $12,639; and Glendale representative Carl Raggio Jr., $11,068, according to records.

Raggio said he though McConkey's complaints were politically motivated to embarrass the commission and noted that the airport authority spent $100,000 in legal fees on representation during the investigation.

Field said it was the written policy of the Airport Authority that travel by spouses would be paid for by the authority.

McConkey claimed that was illegal, citing a a 1992 opinion by the state attorney general which indicated that funds belonging to a public entity could not be spent on spousal travel.

But Field wrote that commissioners were acting on the advice of airport staffers. For that reason it would be difficult to show that they willfully broke the law, Field wrote in his report.

The authority's official policy has not been changed because it has languished on the panel's agenda for the last year. Raggio put out his own order in summer banning payment for spousal travel.

The investigation was one of several factors that aggravated already high tensions over the city of Burbank's attempts to block expansion plans because of complaints from residents about jet noise.