Thirteen candidates vying for three Burbank City Council seats faced off Tuesday night in a League of Women Voters forum, sparring over housing affordability, police surveillance cameras and a transit dispute that has landed the city in court.
Moderator Rita Zwern guided the field through 13 questions, an open round and closing statements ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Housing dominated much of the evening. Zwern noted the average rent in Burbank is $2,500 and that renters typically pay more than 40% of their gross income.
Candidates split between those pushing tenant protections and those arguing the city must simply build more.
Nikki Perez, a sitting council member, said she put forward rent control and tenant protections at her second meeting, proposing a 4% rent cap.
“I know that our 60% renters in the city need relief,” Perez said.
Others framed the crisis as a supply problem.
JT Parr, a comedian who appears on a Netflix show, said he initially favored restrictive rent control but came to see it as “more of a supply issue,” calling for cutting red tape and upzoning.
Candidate Jonathan Ontiveros pointed to four specific plans, some not updated since the 1990s, that could bring close to 16,000 housing units.
The sharpest disagreement came over Flock automated license plate readers, which the Burbank Police Department has used for more than a decade.
Nolan Sutherland, a film editor and community organizer, called for banning all ALPRs, citing hacking, auditing failures and data sharing with other agencies.
Robbie Brody, a lawyer, described the system as “a warrantless search of people who have not done anything wrong.”
David Donahue, a small business owner and former president of the Burbank Fair Housing Political Action Committee, defended the technology as cost effective but acknowledged reports of hacking and said alternatives should be considered if problems persist.
Candidates also weighed in on the Olive Avenue bus rapid transit fight, in which Los Angeles Metro sued Burbank last year over the city’s refusal to issue permits for dedicated bus lanes.
LA Metro sued Burbank in May over the city’s refusal to issue construction permits, implementing dedicated bus only lanes on Olive Avenue for the North Hollywood to Pasadena bus rapid transit project. Burbank council members oppose dedicated bus lanes on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista and Lake Street, citing traffic congestion fears and potential spillover into neighborhoods.
Samantha Wick, a Burbank planning commissioner, backed mixed-flow traffic, citing Public Works concerns about waste collection.
Candidate Eddy Polon proposed part-time dedicated lanes using parking lanes during rush hour, noting three of the four cities on the route found a compromise.
Perez declined to comment, citing active litigation.
On the budget, candidates broadly supported Measure C, a November ballot measure that would raise the hotel tax from 10% to 12% to close a $2.7 million gap for fiscal year 2026-27. Zwern, a League of Women Voters member, said the measure would close the budget gap but noted it doesn’t address the city’s underlying structural deficit that is expected to reach roughly $3.2 million by FY 2028-29.
Donahue urged passage of the tax measure.
“The general fund is also something where we need to be very mindful of discretionary spending on and what we do,” he said.
“It’s not about cutting programs to save money,” Mayor Tamala Takahashi said. “It’s about making sure we have consistent, knowable and higher income into the budget, then deciding what we’re going to do and how we use it.”
The regular City Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday was cancelled for the forum, with the next regular council session set for Tuesday, Sept. 29 in the Council Chamber of Burbank City Hall.
To watch the entire candidate forum online, visit youtube.com/watch?v=0XNF8I-G2U0&t=796s.
The AI platform Civilio assisted this report.
