Elected Official? Create newsletters in minutes, not hours.
Transparent, authentic, comprehensive newsletters to maximize constituent representation and civic engagement.
Tamala Takahashi Newsletter — November 2, 2026
🌟 From the Dais with Mayor Tamala Takahashi | November 2, 2026
Hello, neighbors,
First, a thank-you. To everyone who built a front-yard haunt, staffed a candy bowl, or crawled along a crowded residential block with your headlights on Saturday night: you gave Burbank's kids a Halloween worth the sugar crash. Now the cobwebs come down, the clocks have fallen back, and the calendar hands us something bigger than any scare on Orchard Street. Election Day is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3. Vote centers are already open, drop boxes are standing by at four spots around town, and your ballot carries three Council seats, a City Clerk, a City Treasurer, and two measures that will shape how this city elects its leaders for decades. Everything you need is below. Let's dig in.
🏛️ Council Corner
🔹 The votes from October 27: Tuesday's joint meeting with all agencies delivered on everything previewed here over the past two weeks. Council approved the full consent calendar, including the three transportation agreements detailed in the next section, adopted the 2026 Investment Policy following its annual review, and received the City Treasurer's portfolio report. The evening also brought Youth Board appointments for the school year, a proclamation honoring National Veterinary Technician Appreciation Week, and recognition of City employees with 20 or more years of service alongside Burbank's 2026 Firefighter of the Year, Police Officer of the Year, and Employee of the Year.
→ 💬 My take: Behind every one of those honors is a person who decided Burbank was worth a whole career, and behind every Youth Board seat is a student deciding local government deserves their evenings. Both choices make this city run. Congratulations to all of them. Minutes, staff reports, and video are posted online if you want the full record.
👉 View meeting agendas and eComment
🔹 Dark tomorrow, busy on the 10th: Council does not meet tomorrow, November 3, so that the only civic business in town is your ballot. We return Tuesday, November 10, at 6 p.m. with certificates for the winners of the OurBurbank Halloween Decorating Contest and the discussion I have been flagging for two weeks: whether the City should ban artificial intelligence-generated art in City materials and social media. In a town built on human creativity, that one deserves your attention, and you will get my plain-English breakdown next Monday. The housing and development items on that same agenda get their own section below.
🗳️ Tomorrow Is the Day: Burbank Votes
🔹 Polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.: Vote centers across Los Angeles County, including here in Burbank, run tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. If mailing your ballot feels too close for comfort, the 24-hour Vote by Mail drop boxes at City Hall, the Buena Vista Library, the Joslyn Adult Center, and Ralph Foy Park stay open through tomorrow night. Never registered? Same-day conditional registration is available at any vote center, right up until the polls close. On the ballot: three City Council seats, the City Clerk, the City Treasurer, and two local measures, with new terms beginning December 14.
→ 📘 What this means: A quick refresher on the measures, because they travel together. The Charter Amendment Measure gives the City flexibility in how future Council elections may be conducted. The Districting Measure asks whether Burbank moves from at-large to by-district Council elections using Map 130. The districting question cannot take effect unless the charter amendment also passes, and both trace back to this spring's settlement of a California Voting Rights Act case, which is why the choice now sits with you rather than a courtroom. The City's explainer walks through all of it.
🚌 Transportation Updates
🔹 The transit trio crossed the finish line: On Tuesday, Council approved the amended access agreement that lets BurbankBus serve Hollywood Burbank Airport's new terminal directly, the $1,000,000 funding agreement with Metro toward a battery-electric bus, and the $6,220,000 Measure M agreement for the Downtown Burbank Sidewalk Enhancement Project.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Approval night is really day one. Staff now executes those agreements, which means route planning to the terminal, procurement of a cleaner bus, and design work on sidewalks that will greet the new Central Library and Civic Center when it opens. Our own buses reaching our own airport, with better streets to walk in between, is the kind of progress that compounds for years. I was glad to see all three land.
🔹 Sunset now beats the commute home: With daylight saving time behind us as of Sunday, dusk arrives before 5 p.m., and the evening school pickup, dog walk, and bike ride all happen in lower light. Drivers, give crosswalks an extra beat. Walkers and riders, add something reflective. We just practiced this courtesy on Halloween; let's keep it going all winter.
🌿 Environment & Sustainability
🔹 Give spooky season a clean exit: Pull the candle stub out of the jack-o'-lantern and send it to the green organics cart, and while you are out there, rake the leaves away from the gutter and storm drain before the season's first real rain turns them into a dam. Our citywide goal of cutting emissions 40 percent by 2030 is not won at ribbon cuttings. It is won in green carts and gutters, one house at a time, and yours counts.
🔹 Sustainable Burbank Commission, November 16: The commission meets Monday, November 16, at 5 p.m. As Council liaison, I can vouch for how much ground this group covers in a single evening, from organics diversion to our emissions trajectory. If you have energy or ideas for a greener Burbank, it is a very good room to find.
👉 Visit the City's sustainability hub
🏘️ Housing & Development
🔹 November 10 carries the growth agenda: When Council returns next week, the evening includes a study session on a Development Streamlining and Incentives Program, a public hearing on the 2026 Media District Specific Plan Update, which would amend the Burbank2035 General Plan and the Municipal Code, and an amendment to the lease with Home Again Los Angeles for its Access Center on North Buena Vista. The agenda forecast also lists a proclamation declaring November 1 through 30 as Home Again LA Month, a fitting companion to that lease item and to the organization's record-breaking year of service.
→ 📘 What this means: A study session is where Council gives staff direction without taking a final vote. A public hearing is where formal testimony happens before a decision. Different formats, same fuel: your input. The agenda posts this week, and eComment opens with it.
→ 💬 My take: How Burbank streamlines projects, plans the Media District, and anchors services for neighbors facing homelessness are three versions of the same question: what kind of city are we building? If you have an answer, next Tuesday is when it counts most.
💼 Economic Development & Local Business
🔹 The holiday window opens now: The moment the haunts come down, Burbank's small businesses begin the stretch of the year that decides their whole ledger, and Small Business Saturday lands November 28. Here is my early ask: pick one gift this season that comes from a Burbank storefront. A record shop in its second week and a steakhouse in its ninth decade are counting on exactly the same thing, which is you walking through the door. Business owners gearing up for the season can find support and connections through the Chamber.
👉 Connect with the Burbank Chamber
💚 Health & Wellbeing
🔹 November is National Family Caregivers Month: As a therapist, I will tell you the hardest cases of burnout I see are often the people nobody thinks to check on: the ones caring for an aging parent, a spouse, a sibling. If that is you, respite is not a luxury, and asking for help is not failure. If you love someone doing that work, this is the month to show up with dinner and an hour of relief. The Joslyn Adult Center and our Adults 55+ programs are a strong local starting point for resources and connection.
👉 Explore programs for adults 55 and up
🔹 A light against polio: Rotary clubs from across Burbank came together on October 24 to mark World Polio Day and renew their commitment to eradicating the disease worldwide. A fight that global, carried by volunteers this local, is worth a round of applause from all of us.
🧶 The Community Thread
🔹 Honoring Día de los Muertos: This weekend, November 1 and 2, families across Burbank kept one of the most beautiful traditions on the calendar, building ofrendas and speaking the names of the people they love and miss. To every neighbor who set out marigolds and photographs: thank you for letting memory live out loud in this city.
🔹 "What a Year!" opens tomorrow: The Colony Theatre Gallery's new exhibit opens Tuesday, November 3, and runs through January 19, filled with local artists' answers to what 2026 has meant. An art show about the year we have had, opening on Election Day, feels exactly right. Go see how your neighbors saw it.
🔹 Curtain calls, from pros to fifth graders: Pacific Ballet Theatre raised the curtain on Raising the Barre at the Colony on Sunday, and KAIJU took its final bow at The Road Theatre Company after a run that stretched to November 1. Meanwhile, the Burroughs IMA wrapped this year's Burroughs on Broadway with sell-out crowds and more than 100 student performers, and Emerson Elementary's growing musical theatre program is putting equity center stage with The Addams Family. A city where the school stages are as busy as the professional ones is a city doing the arts right.
👉 Browse the Burbank arts calendar
🔹 Sunday: swords, sorcery, and tea: A reminder from last week's edition: Geeky Teas and Games on West Alameda hosts the launch party for Swords Against!, a new sword and sorcery magazine, this Sunday, November 8, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. with writer Amanda Deibert.
🗓️ Mark Your Calendar
🔹 Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11: Next week we pause to honor the neighbors who served. Watch the city calendar for ceremony details as they post, and in the meantime, the City's veterans programs run all year, not just one Wednesday in November.
👉 Learn about Burbank veterans programs
🔹 Two weeks left to shape the library's art: Applications for the New Central Library Public Art Committee close November 18. If you want a voice in what Burbank's most visited future building says to everyone who walks in, this is your window.
👉 Learn about the library project
🔹 And the rest: From commission meetings to library programs, the full week lives on the city calendar.
👉 View the city events calendar
💡 A Final Thought
Tomorrow at 8 p.m., the voting ends. And then Burbank does the thing I admire most about this town: on Wednesday morning, we are neighbors again. Some of what you choose will pass and some will not, the county's count will take days, and patience is part of the process, not a flaw in it. What does not change is the work. Council returns November 10 with a full agenda, the library keeps moving toward 2029, the leaves still need raking, and the person across the street who voted differently still waves back. So vote tomorrow, then rest easy, and find this newsletter in your inbox next Monday with the results in plain English. If something on this ballot, or beyond it, is sitting on your mind, reply anytime. Your notes shape more of what happens at the dais than you might guess.
Together, we're building a community and better future that works for everyone. Thank you for staying connected!
Tamala Takahashi
Mayor, City of Burbank
tamala.takahashi@mygovtools.org
