Tag: Letter to the Editor

Recently myBurbank published a letter I wrote about the taxpayer funded $447,496.90 settlement that the Burbank Unified School District paid to Andy Cantwell. I was flabbergasted by that amount of money going to settle a contract based on performance failures detailed in the charges read to him at a Board Meeting in December of 2025. When almost half a million dollars intended to be used to educate the children of Burbank went to Mr. Cantwell, flabbergasted was the only word I could summon to express my feelings. Mr. Cantwell’s position as Chief Administrator was said to be essential at the time of his promotion by The  Board of Education. Now the Board considers this position unnecessary?

Now I am writing to inform the community that I have learned that this method of settling contract issues continues. At the February 12^th meeting School Board President Pontzer-Kamkar announced that a settlement agreement with Sarah Rudchenko, former Superintendent: Human Resources was reached, and the payout amount was approximately $400,000.00.

$450,000 here, $400,000 there. Pretty soon it adds up to real money. What makes this especially concerning is the fact that The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) and The Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) are currently meeting with district officials to assist in resolving a designation as “A District of Going Concern”! This suggests that the district may be unable to meet its future financial obligations.

Am I still flabbergasted? You bet! And every taxpayer in Burbank should be joining me in expressing their disapproval of this misuse of educational dollars by the Board of Education.

Les Cohen
Burbank

Good evening Supt. Dr. Macias, Members of the board, district staff and members of the public. My name is Les Cohen. I have been a resident of Burbank for 34 years and I am a retired BUSD High School Counselor.

Tonight I would like to talk about 2 subjects, transparency and political spin. It seems to me that this board has on numerous occasions stressed the importance of transparency, but in reality has not demonstrated a particular value for it. During the last board meeting I asked a question and was taken to task by a board member because she felt it was not timely. I was also encouraged to ask questions like the one I asked through email so as not to waste time bringing up dead issues. Finally, this board member emphasized the value of bringing forward things that were good for students, staff and parents. I would add the tax paying public to that group as well. Let me explain.

During your last meeting I asked about an issue that occurred in May because I had just recently become aware of it. Normally, this issue would not even register with me,  but since the debacle with member Tabet came to light along with the previous  failure to produce 2 years worth of board meeting minutes, the confusion about how Mr. Cantwell was being paid, the general chaos occurring in the finance office, administrators at all levels leaving the district in droves and I could go on and on. So, having lost faith in this board’s ability to oversee the operation of the district (with the exception of member Olson), I felt that  what looked like a small problem with the Surplus Property Advisory Committee minutes was also part of the larger problem with oversight. I am relieved that it isn’t

When members of the public choose to speak about matters that make board members uncomfortable, it is not to do harm to students, staff, parents and taxpayers. It is done to help these stakeholders learn the truth about how the districts is being managed at the highest level. Contrary to what has been said by the board, this district has many problems that are not common to other districts. All districts are not required to submit Fiscal Stabilization Plans. Other districts who do have to submit these plans are much more transparent about them and the steps they are taking to address them due to the seriousness of this requirement, which comes from the Los Angeles County Office of Education. See how the Pasadena School District is handling their FSB for a lesson in how this should be done. Another good source of information is an article written in a publication called Edunomics entitled “What Goes Wrong When Some Board Members Don’t Understand District Finances”.  This district is, it seems to me, not being transparent, but obfuscating when it comes to informing the public about the dire financial straits we are in.

I would love to be up here talking about the many positive things that are happening in the district, but currently I believe the bold truth is more important than contributing to the political spin the public has been hearing from this board. Remember as the old saying goes, Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Les Cohen
Burbank

Technological progress implies the eventual, absolute inevitable use of the word “obsolescence”. Burbank’s City Council’s effective governance can be publicly “measured” when it allows incoherent or polarized citizenry the final chance to make coherent civic decisions at low coordination costs through elections. 

In effect, members of the City Council are self-anointed persons, people who think of themselves as especially qualified and socially positioned to render judgment and chart a course for the lives of Burbankers who are not government employees. no desire to overpower the wishes of other people. So, current members of Burbank’s City Council often exhibit their flights of lofty thoughts and as-vague-as-possible determinations of what is best for other citizens. And, too often, City Council members defer to their preferred bureaucrats also affected by an elitist mentality.

Together, the present-day perched Council (and its ever more numerous unelected servants) form a kind of real-world duplication of the post-1946 children’s toy, the Drinking Bird, which bobs up and down, moved by two evaporation regimes. Hot air does the job!

AI is in the process of overwhelming Hollywood’s status, yet Burbank still financially supports a highly altered industry. Why? Would it not be helpful, instead, to Burbank to use those funds to attract AI firms to establish cinema worksites IN our City?

The 2013 movie ELYSIUM showed AD 2154 Los Angeles as a shantytown, even its suburb of Hollywood, and considering its demonstrably bad near-perpetual governance by dippies, that state of affairs may arrive far earlier, before mid-21st Century!

Burbankers ought to grab ahold of a profound, once-in-a-lifetime, economic opportunity by closing off its taxpayer furnished money succor for Hollywood. It is time, now, for a replacement, an AI industry with the potential to bring big payrolls on the monetary scale of Lockheed.

Richard B. Cathcart

Burbank

The 28 October 2025 City Council Meeting public comments revealed some ideas hopeful Burbankers see as a few of the obvious future tasks still awaiting the informed, focused attention of our five elected civic policy-makers. Big Questions are open-ended urban queries of high social importance that can be answered within a reasonable timeframe. A Burbank Rental Registry is vital to move forward on the urgent matter of affordable housing for Burbankers, old and young.

I was impressed by the Commentators who had to voice their most cogent thoughts on Burbank’s rental economics in just one minute of allowed speech. After being exposed to the corporate landlords’ exaggerations of their organized industry’s masterminded merits, renters were careful not to oversell their common viewpoint on the landlord-constraining new legislation ultimately and wisely affirmed by the Council.

Poor apartment maintenance is a particular sore point with many ripped-off renters. Ageing of infrastructure, deterioration, is taken to start usually after five years of use, anything before that is considered as inadequacy of design, quality of construction or poor operation. The city we see around us is the backdrop of our daily lives, but we cannot apprehend the mess that many tenants, both commercial and private, must endure that is caused entirely by wretched management of rented properties! Maintenance should be the exclusive domain of dedicated occupations that are in charge of the caring supervision and the repair of leased and rented Burbank buildings. However, that is rarely the case as many of those persons who rent/lease know personally from unpleasant conflictual experiences.

In fact, the corrosive political climate generated by landlords and some distrusted politicians (State-wide) has caused the generalized formation of a quiet public outcry, perhaps best dubbed RUST. Renters Under Social Threat. To forestall a further breakdown of public trust as well as Burbank’s cohesion as a civil society, why not implement ASAP, a cooperative public planning policy? For example, Haochen Shi, writing in the journal NATURE CITIES, “Seeing cities through video games” (2025), offers a cheerful possibility for enabled Burbbankers to participate in meaningful “…urban design, especially in complex regeneration contexts”.

Richard B. Cathcart

Burbank

Tuesday’s City Council meeting was nothing short of historic. Never before have so many tenants come together to demand change from our city leaders. The chambers were packed with renters, homeowners, landlords, small business owners, and students all speaking with a shared message: Burbank needs a real, enforceable rent cap to keep people housed.

For hours, community members told deeply personal stories about rent hikes, eviction threats, and displacement. The turnout reflected a growing movement of ordinary residents who believe that housing in Burbank should be stable and fair. Despite that, the Council ultimately moved toward a soft rent cap rather than the firm, hard limit that so many urged them to adopt.

While I am proud of how strong and unified the community’s voice was, I wish the Council had listened more closely, especially Councilmember Tamala Takahashi, who appeared largely unmoved by the heartfelt testimonies that filled the room. The people of Burbank showed up in record numbers, not out of politics but out of necessity. I hope future votes reflect that urgency.

Kyle Anderson
Burbank Resident and Small Business Owner

I am a Burbank resident who cares deeply about keeping our neighbors housed and our community intact. I want to respond to the recent letter claiming rent stabilization is a scam driven by outsiders.

The truth is simple: Burbank voters were not rejecting rent protections, they were misled. During Measure RC, hundreds of thousands of dollars were poured into anti-renter campaigns from out-of-town interests like Airbnb and the National Association of Realtors. Over $600,000 locally and $150 million statewide were spent in 2024 alone. These were corporate lobbying groups protecting profit. Even today, Councilmember Chris Rizzotti still associates with the National Association of Realtors — the same group that printed and distributed proven lies about his colleagues during the election. If he truly stood for local residents, he would denounce their involvement. He has not.

Here is a helpful reminder: when someone loudly opposes rent stabilization, take 30 seconds and look them up. See how many rental properties they own. The last Letter to the Editor against rent control was written by someone who owns seven apartment units and eight houses. That is not someone fighting for working families. That is someone protecting income. Burbank is a community, not an ATM. Meanwhile, ordinary residents are struggling. Rent has risen far faster than wages, especially as entertainment industry work has declined.

A rent registry is equally essential. It is basic transparency. Landlords who operate fairly have nothing to fear. The only people fighting it are those who do not want the public to see the ways they take advantage of tenants. Despite what is claimed, “mom-and-pop” landlords represent only 4% of rent-stabilized units in Burbank. Most housing is controlled by larger operators who absolutely can afford basic regulation.

Burbank is a majority-renter city. This is not a fringe issue. It is about seniors on fixed incomes, young families, lifelong residents, and working-class film crew members who want to stay in the city they helped build.

Rent stabilization is not an attack. It is protection. And any leader who claims to love Burbank should protect its people first.

Kyle Anderson
Burbank Resident

Recently we in our Burbank neighborhood observed a man near the intersection of Rose St. and Hood Ave. get out of his car and fly a drone around over our area’s homes. 

Home burglars are becoming very tech-savvy, as they have used cameras hidden in bushes to follow the comings and goings of homeowners to plan their burglaries and have found ways to disable alarms and video cameras. I’m concerned that drones could also by thieves to find locations that are vulnerable to break-in’s.

Via The Burbank Channel, people all over the world can see our City’s elected governing panel. And, what an uncool collection of human dalliers they are seen to  be when they appear improperly dressed for the official occasion of their Tuesday meetings! Perhaps there is an attention-commanding solution: lime-yellow electronicized uniforms a la Star Trek! (School students and jail inmates wear uniforms, so why not all members of the City Council, possibly displayed on TV monitors worldwide?)

Since we live in the 21st Century, citizen commanders ought to be dressed to identify the organization they represent. Those Star Trek leaders wore simple, non-electronicized, clothes designed by Andre Courreges, Paco Rebane and Pierre Cardin. The principle of the outer space-suit might apply, meaning that Council Uniforms could perform novel tasks of revealing to voters some aspects of the Members personality, such as if they are lying whilst addressing worried and harassed taxpayers via a publicly-funded broadcasting system named The Burbank Channel.

Since Burbankers don’t yet possess Wonder Woman’s “Lasso of Truth”, sociologist Robert King Merton’s “Introspectometer” or novelist James Halperin’s postulated (and supposed available by AD 2024) “The Truth Machine” we could look backwards to circa December 1966. It was then, in an unsigned Note penned for the HARVARD LAW JOURNAL (Vol. 80, No. 2, pages 403-421) that a proposal was summarized at length for “Anthropotelemetry: Dr. Schwitzgebel’s Machine”. In effect, Dr. Ralph Kirkland Schwitzgebel (1934-2015) proposed suitings for the institution of the perfect 21st Century politician! 

Imagine a scenario unfolding soon in Burbank, before at least an audience of Burbankers, where all our Star Trek-outfitted City Council Members were constantly electronically monitored–like hospital patients–by identical electronics-laced clothing. Such total environmental City Hall garb, with all read-outs displayed simultaneously beside their TV visage, subjected the voters and others to real-time visual scrutiny of such important elected local authorities!

Rent control/ rent registry is a scam. Its one of those too good to be true scams. It’s being perpetrated by primarily out of town paid protestors who have no interest in the well-being of Burbank.

The voters of Burbank by 2 to 1 have repeatedly opposed rent control. Burbank voters usually get things right but sometimes miss when voting for our city council members. Three of our current Council Members have supported their personal agenda with an unscientific poll that didn’t even measure Burbank residents. Unscientific poll vs. certified election. Hmmm!

Perez, Anthony and Takahashi, have been identified as being politically ambitious and who have no interest in preserving Burbank as the great city it is. We have seen at least one of council members try to elevate their position by running for office outside of Burbank at the first opportunity and I’m guessing that Perez and Takahashi are on the same track.  Did they think we didn’t notice when they postponed Nick Schulz’s being named mayor to help him run for another office.

It appears pretty obvious this is the case when they are pushing an agenda the city doesn’t want and we can see through the personal boost the three of them hope to garner.

The city doesn’t have the six million dollars for establishing rent control and it’s very concerning that these three are willing to jeopardize the city’s solvency for their own interest.

Takahashi, is a very big disappointment in her phony call for data. She has the data but has been unwilling to take a stand and it appears member Takahashi is very intimidated by Council members Anthony and Perez. We voted for five individual representatives and I’m hoping Tamala can get up the gumption to honor the will of the people.

I’m calling on all current council members to honor the Burbank voters by upholding their mandate and reject the rent cap.

Jackie Waltman
Burbank

The Los Angeles Times has uncovered that secretive Colorado River talks are taking place, shaping decisions that will soon hit Burbank families in their monthly bills. Burbank Water and Power relies heavily on water imported through the Metropolitan Water District. When cuts or costs rise on the Colorado River, Burbank is one of the first to feel it.

This is not just a water issue—it’s a democracy issue. Our city is left vulnerable because we are crammed into a congressional district where water realities differ wildly. Los Angeles neighborhoods have LADWP’s Owens Valley aqueduct and State Project water as a buffer. Burbank doesn’t. Yet we’re represented by the same single frozen House seat, with no one dedicated to fighting for our particular vulnerability.

Congress has been stuck at 435 seats since 1911. That means Burbank’s water ratepayers are effectively voiceless when federal and interstate water deals are struck. A micro-district system would ensure that communities like ours—most dependent on MWD and the Colorado River—finally have a seat at the table.

When it comes to water, secrecy and underrepresentation is a recipe for higher rates and lower trust. Burbank deserves better. It’s time to unfreeze Congress and bring real representation home.

Pini Herman
Candidate for Congress, CA-30

The Internet and local mass media outlets regularly manipulate the public’s attention. Few industries are better placed to instigate contrived Internet and broadcast “news” than California’s professional politicians.

So, it was a surprise when Assemblyman Nick Schultz, from the 44th District which entails at least nine contiguous cities, including Burbank, voted “Absent” on SB 79. Previously, as our City’s Mayor, he appeared sympathetic to local apartment renters as well as the City’s struggling business community. However, he moved on to higher office, his present-day role in Sacramento, before any important City Council vote was done on the still pending matter of a locally approved “rent cap” and “renoviction protections” for Burbankers. In other words, his work in Burbank was made moot by his own self-serving actions!

Now, as a member of the California State Assembly since November 2024, he has gone on record in October 2025–in the history books–as uninterested in Burbank’s sovereignty maintenance difficulties caused by Sacramento’s increasingly intrusive planning authorities!

What’s the upshot for Schultz and other professional politicians? Broadly, it is the marginalization of an entire industry characterized as Local Professional Politics! As planning powers become more centralized in Sacramento, local political campaign donors will exit the local market, upcoming politicians, for the seat of real power in California. In other words, Schultz, among others, are attenuating the source of local voices through the shriveling of locally financing for vote seekers in local elections. Isn’t that called killing the goose that lays the Golden Eggs?

Richard B. Cathcart

Burbank

Here are some words directly from the mouth of school administrator, Andrew Cantwell, BUSD Chief Administrative Officer.

At the January 10, 2024, Measure S Bond Oversight Committee meeting, while discussing the annual Financial Audit, Mr. Cantwell reminded the group of the legal requirement for a separate Performance Audit. He told them; “The Performance Audit is to have an outside agency ensure that we are only using the funds for those things which are permissible according to the bond language. So, for instance, if part of my salary were being charged to the bond that would be impermissible”

One year later, at their February 5, 2025, meeting Mr. Cantwell again tells the committee members, “As a reminder for those who may be confused the bond does not allow us to pay for my salary or general administrator salaries. But it does allow us to bring in-house certain functions that might otherwise be outsourced to a construction management firm” Then he introduced two newly hired project managers whose salary will be paid by bond funds.

Of course this makes sense.  Mr. Cantwell got this one hundred percent right.

To clarify this issue Attorney General Bill Lockyer opined in 2004 that “a school district may use Proposition 39 school bond proceeds to pay the salaries of district employees to the extent they perform administrative oversight work on construction projects authorized by a voter approved bond measure”

So why highlight Mr. Cantwell’s words? Because the District has been paying 100% of Mr. Cantwell’s salary from Bond funds since July 1, 2025. In my opinion this is outrageous. How does this Board let this happen?

Jef Vander Borght
Burbank

BUSD business staff provided contracts and invoices in response to a public records request for the consulting contracts and payments to Dr. Jan Britz. You may recall Dr. Britz is a retired former BUSSD Superintendent. We asked for this information because recent warrant reports showed this consultant was paid over $33,000 to mentor former superintendent Paramo and administrators, with only two principals acknowledging speaking with her.

The documents BUSD provided point to another example of failed fiscal controls. This failure lands squarely on the desk of the person in charge of all fiscal matters, Assistant Superintendent Cantwell.

To put this in proper context, back on January 16, 2025, at a board meeting, Dr. Abdelhamid, then a director and recently promoted Assistant Superintendent of Business Services, with Mr. Cantwell supporting her, spoke for over 40 minutes about her extensive work in response to the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) recommendations from February 2024. She told us about her efforts to hire knowledgeable and experienced personnel. She reported then her department was fully staffed.

Most importantly she described new systems she had put in place including a google drive and google forms. No more paper invoices would be accepted from consultants. She told us these measures were created to help expedite payments and prevent fraud.

In that light, with these new systems in place, here are questions the public needs answered:

1. Why was Dr. Britz paid $10,000 in advance of doing any work, without an invoice? Did the new google drive system cause this to happen? If not, who approved this?
2. Why are school principals asked to sign meaningless invoices months after payment?
3. How does the new system allow $33,575 to be paid when only $30,000 worth of NOT TO EXCEED contracts were in place? Is the new system not capable of flagging overpayments?
4. Which leads us to ask the most important question, how many other consultants have received overpayments?

These are not abstract nitpicking questions. Every dollar overpaid is a dollar taken from classrooms, from teachers, and from students.

In the most recent financial Unaudited Actuals report staff shows a slide with the words “Next steps; Culture of fiscal mindfulness: transparency, accountability, and collaboration.”

In that spirit, we have appealed to the Board to immediately take three actionable steps:

• First, mandate that no consultant payment be made above the contract amount until a change order receives Board approval.
• Second, mandate internal controls be put in place so no consultant can be paid in advance, and no payment can be made without properly itemized consultant-generated invoices with verified approved time sheets.
• Third, request an audit of all consultant agreements and payments over the past two years, with findings shared publicly. Yes, this is an expense, but it is a prudent business expense the Board owes the public.

School Board members must show the community their commitment to “fiscal mindfulness” is not just an empty slogan.

Jef Vander Borght
Burbank