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Tamala Takahashi Newsletter — October 26, 2026
🌟 From the Dais with Mayor Tamala Takahashi | October 26, 2026
Good morning, Burbank,
Five days until Halloween, eight days until Election Day, and one day until Council is back at the dais. That is quite a lineup for a single week. Vote centers opened across Los Angeles County this weekend for early in-person voting, the front-yard haunts that make this city famous are in their final glorious stretch, and tomorrow night brings a joint meeting with a packed agenda. Whether your week involves a ballot, a costume, or an eComment, there is a way to show up in it. Flashlights ready.
🏛️ Council Corner
🔹 The ledger sits quiet one more day: Council was dark on Tuesday, October 20, so there are no votes to report this week. That changes tomorrow.
🔹 Tomorrow night, a full house: Council returns Tuesday, October 27, at 6 p.m. for a joint meeting with all agencies. On the agenda: recognition of City employees with 20 or more years of service, honors for Burbank's 2026 Firefighter of the Year, Police Officer of the Year, and Employee of the Year, Youth Board appointments for the school year, a proclamation honoring National Veterinary Technician Appreciation Week, and a review of the 2026 Investment Policy alongside the City Treasurer's portfolio report.
→ 📘 What this means: A joint meeting is one where Council also convenes as the boards of the City's related agencies, so business that spans those bodies gets handled in a single evening. And if the Investment Policy sounds dry, here is the plain-English version: it is the rulebook for how your public dollars are held, in strict order of priority. Safety first, liquidity second, and only then yield.
→ 💬 My take: The honors portion of this agenda is my favorite kind of city business. Behind every award is someone who chose Burbank as the place to spend a career, and behind every Youth Board appointment is a student deciding that local government is worth their Tuesday nights. I hope you will weigh in on any item through eComment before the meeting; I read what comes through.
👉 View meeting agendas and eComment
🔹 A peek at November: Council goes dark on Tuesday, November 3, for Election Day, then returns November 10 with certificates for the winners of the OurBurbank 2026 Halloween Decorating Contest and a discussion I have circled twice: whether the City should ban the use of artificial intelligence-generated art in City materials and social media. In a town where human creativity is the core industry, that conversation matters, and you will get the plain-English breakdown here when it lands.
🗳️ Eight Days: Vote Centers Are Open
🔹 Early voting has begun: Vote centers opened across Los Angeles County this weekend, secure ballot drop boxes stay open through Election Day, and on Tuesday, November 3, vote centers run from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Burbank's ballot includes three City Council seats, the City Clerk, the City Treasurer, and two local measures, with new terms beginning December 14. One more thing worth knowing: if you missed the October 19 registration deadline, you are not out of options. Same-day conditional registration is available at any vote center, all the way through Election Day. Your vote still counts; it just takes one extra step.
🔹 The two measures, in plain English: One is a Charter Amendment Measure that would give the City flexibility in how future Council elections may be conducted, which could help Burbank adapt to changes in state or federal law. The other is a Districting Measure asking whether we keep electing all Council members at-large or transition to by-district elections using Map 130, starting with Districts 2 and 4 in 2028 and Districts 1, 3, and 5 in 2030. The fine print that matters: the Districting Measure cannot take effect unless the Charter Amendment also passes, and if both fail, the current at-large system continues. My job in this newsletter is not to tell you how to vote on them. It is to make sure you walk into the vote center knowing exactly what they do, and the City's explainer lays it all out.
👉 Explore the election measures explainer
🚌 Transportation Updates
🔹 Decision day for three transit items: Tomorrow's consent calendar carries the trio I previewed last week: an amended access agreement so BurbankBus can serve Hollywood Burbank Airport's new terminal directly, a $1,000,000 funding agreement with Metro toward a battery-electric bus, and a $6,220,000 Measure M agreement for the Downtown Burbank Sidewalk Enhancement Project. Previews are over; the votes happen tomorrow night, and eComment is open until then. Connecting our own buses to our own airport with cleaner equipment, and building sidewalks worth lingering on, is exactly the quiet, practical progress I love to support.
🔹 Saturday night, drive like it is Halloween: Because it is. Thousands of small ghosts and superheroes will be crossing our streets after dark on October 31, many of them too excited to look both ways. Slow down, especially on residential blocks, and parents, a glow stick or reflective strip goes a long way. Let's make the scariest thing about Saturday the decorations.
🌿 Environment & Sustainability
🔹 Give your jack-o'-lantern a second act: When the porch lights go out next weekend, pull the candle stub and any wax out of your pumpkin and send it to the green organics cart instead of the trash, where it becomes compost rather than landfill methane. Costumes deserve an encore too: swap them with neighbors or donate rather than toss. Our path to cutting citywide emissions 40 percent by 2030 is paved with exactly these small, unglamorous choices, and I am grateful for every single one you make.
👉 Visit the City's sustainability hub
🏘️ Housing & Development
🔹 Two big development conversations land November 10: When Council returns from its Election Day break, the agenda includes a study session on a Development Streamlining and Incentives Program and a public hearing on the 2026 Media District Specific Plan Update, which would amend the Burbank2035 General Plan and the Municipal Code. That same evening carries an amendment to the lease with Home Again Los Angeles for its Access Center on North Buena Vista, keeping services for neighbors facing homelessness anchored where they are needed. Streamlining, planning, and shelter all in one night: if you care about how Burbank grows, this is a meeting to put on your calendar now and comment on early.
💼 Economic Development & Local Business
🔹 Drop the needle on Burbank Boulevard: After about a year of planning, Josh Collins and Emily Troedson have opened Daystar Records, a record shop built to be a hangout for music lovers of every age, open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Last week this newsletter toasted The Smoke House at 80; this week we get to welcome a business at week one. Every legacy institution in this city started exactly like this, with two people and an idea. Go flip through the bins and say hello.
💚 Health & Wellbeing
🔹 Imagine A City, delivered: The Family Service Agency of Burbank's annual gala filled the courtyard at Nickelodeon with more than 300 guests, raising funds for the counseling, youth, and domestic violence programs that keep help within reach for Burbank families. The evening also honored Peggy Flynn with the Mary Alice O'Connor Vision Award for her years of leadership as an arts and education administrator. Congratulations, Peggy, and thank you to everyone who bought a ticket. Affordable counseling is not a luxury in a healthy city; it is infrastructure.
🔹 Ten years of Tequilas, in the books: The donation window for the tenth annual Tequilas Burbank cancer fundraiser closed Thursday, capping a decade of neighbors funding the genetics and genomics program at the Disney Family Cancer Center in memory of Julie Franco. To everyone who gave: that is what a hometown decade looks like. Thank you.
🔹 The clocks fall back Sunday: Daylight saving time ends Sunday, November 1, and while the extra hour of sleep is lovely, the earlier darkness can quietly dent moods and routines. Get morning light when you can, hold your bedtime steady, and check in on the people who live alone. And as always, support is there before anything becomes a crisis: the 988 line answers calls and texts free and confidentially, around the clock.
🧶 The Community Thread
🔹 Four checks, one car club: The Road Kings of Burbank handed out $8,000 at their monthly meeting at the Elks Lodge, with $2,000 each going to Home Again Los Angeles, the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley, the Burbank Police Foundation, and the Burbank Historical Society. The club was founded in 1952 and hits its 75th anniversary next year, which means they have been pairing chrome with generosity longer than most of us have been alive. This is how Burbank institutions behave, and I love it.
🔹 An arts weekend worth the applause: Saturday brought Peter and the Wolf to the Buena Vista Library and the Community Band's free Chillers and Thrillers Halloween concert to Dolores Huerta Middle School, Sunday afternoon the Helix Collective performed the great themes of public broadcasting, and Falsettos took its final bow at the Victory Theatre Center to close out its Burbank premiere run. To every musician, actor, and volunteer who gave us that weekend: this city noticed.
🔹 Last call for "What a Year!": Artists, the submission deadline for the Colony Theatre Gallery's next exhibit is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 27, with the show running November 3 through January 19. If a piece of yours sums up 2026, this is its moment.
👉 See the Call for Art details
🔹 A haunted stretch run on our stages: KAIJU enters its closing weekend at The Road Theatre Company, wrapping November 1. The Equestrian Center hosts Candlelight concerts Thursday and Friday nights, including Halloween Classics by string quartet on October 30, the same evening the Burbank International Film Festival throws its Halloween Horror Show screening and costume party at the Cambria Hotel and the Burbank Diamond Walk performance piece moves through Vickroy Park. Then Pacific Ballet Theatre raises the curtain on Raising the Barre at the Colony on Sunday, November 1. Pick one and bring a friend.
👉 Browse the Burbank arts calendar
🔹 One for my fellow nerds: Geeky Teas and Games on West Alameda hosts the launch party for Swords Against!, a new sword and sorcery magazine, on Sunday, November 8, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. with writer Amanda Deibert. A game shop, a new fantasy magazine, and tea? As a lifelong gamer and proud nerd, I can confirm that is a perfect Sunday.
👉 Get the launch party details
🗓️ Mark Your Calendar
🔹 Halloween lands on a Saturday: October 31 is the main event, and Burbank's front-yard haunts, full sets, live actors and all, run through the night itself. The community map will point you to every scare worth the walk, including the much-talked-about Nightmare on Orchard Street. Porch light on means candy; porch light off means see you next year.
🔹 Decorators, your audience awaits: The OurBurbank volunteers run their annual Halloween Decorating Contest, and this year's winners will be honored at the dais on November 10. If your yard is already a masterpiece, this is your week to shine.
🔹 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
This week asks for two very different kinds of showing up. On Saturday, Burbank puts on its costume: the haunts, the candy, the kids sprinting between porches. The Tuesday after, we take the costumes off and decide who sits on this dais and how we elect them for years to come. I find something hopeful in that pairing. A city playful enough to build monsters in its front yards and serious enough to fill out a thoughtful ballot three days later is a city doing both parts of community right. So send an eComment before tomorrow's 6 p.m. meeting, read the measures explainer before you vote, and save me a fun-size candy bar. I will see you on the other side of both.
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
