page_title: Burbank, California
section_title: Government
hierarchical_section_title: Burbank, California / Government
caption_attribution_description: English: Departing fire truck at Fire Station 12 in Burbank, California.
context_page_description: Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley. The population at the 2010 census was 103,340.
  Billed as the "Media Capital of the World" and only a few miles northeast of Hollywood, numerous media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon Animation Studios, The Burbank Studios, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network, and Insomniac Games. The Hollywood Burbank Airport was the location of Lockheed's Skunk Works, which produced some of the most secret and technologically advanced airplanes, including the U-2 spy planes that uncovered the Soviet Union missile components in Cuba in October 1962.
  Burbank consists of two distinct areas: a downtown/foothill section, in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains, and the flatland section. The city was referred to as "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
context_section_description: Burbank is a charter city which operates under a council–manager form of government. In 1927, voters approved the Council-Manager form of government. The five-member City Council is elected for four-year overlapping terms, with the Mayor appointed annually from among the Council. The City Clerk and the City Treasurer are also elected officials.
  Burbank is a full-service, independent city, with offices of the City Manager and City Attorney, and departments of Community Development, Financial Services, Fire, Information Technology, Library Services, Management Services, Police, Parks-Recreation & Community Services, Public Works, and Burbank Water and Power (BWP). The first power was distributed within the city limits of Burbank in 1913, supplied then by Southern California Edison Company. Today, the city-owned BWP serves 45,000 households and 6,000 businesses in Burbank with water and electricity. Additionally, the $382-million annual revenue utility offers fiber optic services. Burbank's city garbage pickup service began in 1920; outhouses were banned in 1922.
  Most of Burbank's current power comes from the Magnolia Power Project, a 328-megawatt power plant located on Magnolia Boulevard near the Interstate 5 freeway. The municipal power plant, jointly owned by six Southern California cities (Burbank, Glendale, Anaheim. Pasadena, Colton, and Cerritos), began generating electricity in 2005. It replaced a 1941 facility that had served the customers of Burbank for almost 60 years.
  At the height of California's 2001 energy crisis, BWP unveiled a mini-power plant at its landfill. It marked the world's first commercial landfill power plant using Capstone microturbine technology. Ten microturbines run on landfill gas, producing 300 kilowatts of renewable energy for Burbank. That's enough energy to serve the daily needs of about 250 homes. The landfill is located in the Verdugo Mountains in the northeastern portion of the city. In 2015, Burbank reached its 2007 goal of providing 33% renewable energy to the city five years ahead of schedule. As of 2017, the city was getting 35% of its power from renewables.
  Like other cities in California, Burbank faced mandatory water cutbacks required under the state's drought emergency response plan announced in April 2015. Burbank was required to lower water use by 28% of 2013 levels. The state threatened stiff fines for non-compliance. Even in 2019, the city still enforced what's known as the Sustainable Water Use Ordinance. This means that landscape watering with sprinklers is allowed only up to 3 days per week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays only.
  The Burbank City Council lost a court case in 2000 involving the right to begin meetings with a sectarian prayer. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that prayers referencing specific religions violated the principle of separation of church and state in the First Amendment. While invocations were still allowed, Burbank officials were required to advise all clerics that sectarian prayer as part of Council meetings was not permitted under the Constitution.
  In 1977, Californians passed Proposition 13, a property tax initiative, and Burbank and other cities in the state soon experienced constrained revenues. Burbank dealt with the ramifications of maintaining service levels expected by the community but still with impacts on city finances. As a result, Burbank officials opted to cut some services and implement user fees for specialized services and residents in special zoned areas. One fee was an equine license fee for owners of horse property, even if they no longer owned a horse just to keep from losing their rural zoning.
caption: Burbank Fire Station 12
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