Inspections

Glendale needs a rental inspection program that is more formal than the present system, but progress toward such a program took a giant leap backward over the past few weeks, landing with a thud Tuesday night. A rental inspection ordinance adopted by the Glendale City Council on June 18 and scheduled to take effect a week from today essentially is no more, as the council surrendered to irate property owners and tenants almost as fast as Cornwallis called it quits at Yorktown.

Cracked axles, overweight loads and flat tires were some of the more than 100 violations discovered on large commercial vehicles during Wednesday's specialized enforcement and inspection in Glendale. One of the vehicles was a 40,000-pound truck with two flats a bald tire that was carrying a load of exposed dirt. The truck was traveling on Broadway toward Glendale High School when Lt. Steve Robertson stopped its driver, who he said was also wearing headphones in both ears. The truck's potentially dangerous tires and uncovered load were violations, which Robertson said left unattended could have resulted in a devastating tragedy.

GLENDALE — City workers inspected a home on East Glenoaks Boulevard in response to neighbors' claims that it is illegally acting as a business, but results thus far have been inconclusive, officials say. City officials are continuing their efforts to investigate the home and could have results on whether there is a case by next week, they said. The City Attorney's Office sent a team Saturday to inspect the property owned by Minas and Dalida Keuroghlian to ascertain if there was illegal activity going on there.

BURBANK — Security personnel halted both security checkpoints at the Bob Hope Airport at 8:46 a.m. on Monday for a brief moment of silence to commemorate the victims of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Following the observance, the airport's Federal Security Director Shannon Garcia-Hamilton spoke to Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority Commissioners about the great strides in airport security since the inception of the federal Transportation Security Administration in 2002.

A bomb squad has been called in to investigate a device that was found to be "suspicious in nature" at Bel Aire Drive and Thompson Avenue, officials said. The device was attached to a pole in the neighborhood, which has been closed off to passersby as a precaution, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. A supervisor with Glendale Water & Power didn't recognize the device as something the utility uses, so Los Angeles County Sheriff's bomb squad was notified and is en route to examine the device, he added.

Tim Willert As part of a plan to balance the budget, the City Council is considering a host of fee hikes and new fees as part of a plan to balance the budget. The council will discuss tonight whether to raise overall fire- inspection fees by 20% and building-permit fees by 36% as a way to help ease the drain on the city's General Fund. Under a fee schedule being proposed by Public Works, building permit fees would jump 30% and plan review fees would climb 20%. Additionally, new permit fees are being proposed for residential electrical services.

There’s a decent amount of bad acting in “Inspecting Carol,” the play being performed this week by the advanced acting class at Hoover High School, but it’s all part of the show. In the comedy, the character Wayne Wallacher — played by Aren Soulahian, 17 — is awarded a role in a play despite his lackluster acting skills simply because the theater company thinks he is an undercover inspector for the National Endowment for the Arts, which they need to impress to save their theater company.

BURBANK — A persistent decline in the number of people willing to shell out for a plane ticket prompted Bob Hope Airport officials Monday to cutback on their own spending plans, deferring multimillion-dollar construction projects in the face of falling revenue. Just four months into a fiscal year rife with market turmoil, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority voted unanimously Monday to adjust its capital improvement plan budget to reflect a 16.5% drop from last year in the number of passengers using the airport in October, a total of 419,213 people.

GLENDALE — The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority has found that a planned baggage-inspection facility, which officials stress is pivotal to airport safety, will not significantly affect the environment. The project includes a one-story, 4,500-square-foot blast-resistant building with an attached 1,600-square-foot open canopy to cover the baggage carts and a 400-square-foot elevated and covered baggage conveyor. The authority found the project will not adversely affect the aesthetics of the surrounding area, agricultural, biological or cultural resources, the air quality and the soil.

Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra will pay tribute to 50 years of Warner Bros. film scores Sunday at the Starlight Bowl. Scores will include early films like “My Fair Lady” to the more recent ones such as “Superman” and “Harry Potter,” said maestro Steven Kerstein of La Cañada Flintridge. At the top of the list is the bold and sensuous “Bolero,” written by Maurice Ravel as a ballet but used in the movie “10,” starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.