Ryan Carter
With city councils from Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena gearing up as
early as next week to approve renaming the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena
Airport after Bob Hope, certain agencies within the airport are
readying for no change at all.
Though the costs of changing the name are estimated to be close to
$250,000 in signage changes -- much of which the airport will provide
-- entities like the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport police and
fire departments and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority
will not change their names.
"I think the commissioners felt this is still a tri-city, local
agency, and wanted to maintain a name that retains that local
designation of the airport," Authority Executive Director Dios
Marrero said.
The airport facility could be renamed as early as Dec. 17, the
anniversary of the centennial of flight. The airport's commissioners
unanimously approved an agreement with Hope's family on Nov. 3 to
rename the airport Bob Hope Airport. The three city councils are
scheduled to vote on the name change within the next two weeks.
Signs will go up at the airport with the new name, street signs
will be changed and the terminal's sign will be changed. Flight
attendants might even announce it as Bob Hope Airport as planes
approach Burbank, Airport Authority Commissioner Charles Lombardo
said.
"The authority itself is the Burbank- Glendale-Pasadena Airport
Authority," Lombardo said. "But what we call ourselves is
inconsequential. The 'Bob Hope Police and Fire departments?' In
Orange County, they didn't adopt John Wayne's name for its
departments. You have to keep your identity. But the authority is
still going to be the authority."
The authority was created in 1977 after Lockheed sold the airport.
The agency was set up by Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena. The name has
stuck since then, but no legal reason exists to keep it, Marrero
said, adding that it was the local designations in the name that have
given it staying power.
Hope representatives have said they will come through with private
donors and a gala fund-raiser next year to help cover costs of the
name change.
"I think that is fine," Burbank Councilman Dave Golonski said of
the two names. "The public will know it as Bob Hope Airport, and that
is the tribute that everyone is looking for."
Lombardo agreed. "What you call the airport is not a major event,
but naming it for Bob Hope is a tribute you cannot minimize because
he has done so much for everyone in this country."
