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Tamala Takahashi Newsletter — September 21, 2026
🌟 From the Dais with Mayor Tamala Takahashi | September 21, 2026
Happy last day of summer, Burbank,
Saturday afternoon I headed over to the Autumn Arts Festival at Johnny Carson Park, having made exactly one prediction on my way out the door: perfect weather. The park delivered, and so did everyone else. Local artists filled the booths, the food trucks stayed busy, and The Velvonics played our city into the evening. Between that Saturday and a Tuesday council meeting packed with climate data and street safety dollars, this was a week where Burbank showed both sides of itself: the city that celebrates together and the city that does its homework. On to the week.
🏛️ Council Corner
🔹 Recap: the September 15 meeting: After three dark Tuesdays, Council came back with a full evening. We held the study session on our Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan (my full breakdown is below), presented the proclamation for Fire Prevention Week ahead of its October observance, and approved a seven-item consent calendar. That calendar included the two transportation items I previewed for weeks, plus a resolution accepting a $20,918 U.S. Department of Justice grant for police equipment and a $5,000 donation from the Strickland Family Foundation supporting our Fire Department's health and wellness program. Everything on the calendar passed, with one no vote recorded on the DOJ grant item and one abstention on another. Council also voted to schedule a future discussion on automated license plate readers, including whether Burbank should ban Flock and pole-mounted cameras. Technology, privacy, and public safety deserve the full plain-English treatment, and you will get it from me when that item returns. Staff reports, minutes, and video are posted online.
👉 View meeting agendas and eComment
🔹 Next up: dark tomorrow, back September 29: Council is dark tomorrow, September 22, and returns Tuesday, September 29 at 6 p.m. The forecast for that evening includes a proclamation declaring October as National Community Planning Month, a consent calendar with a $1,235,750 Homeland Security grant to build a new Emergency Operations Center for the City, and a $50,000 agreement with Home Again Los Angeles to administer the Immigration Emergency Assistance Fund, a program that helps neighbors navigating genuinely frightening circumstances. The report I have circled: recommendations from the Creative Industry Taskforce on strengthening Burbank's creative economy. As Council liaison to the Cultural Arts Commission, I have been waiting for this one. Forecasts can shift, so check the posted agenda before the meeting.
🚌 Transportation Updates
🔹 Funded, finally: Tuesday night, the $1,584,000 federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant and the Phase 3 contract for signal improvements along the I-5 corridor both rode the consent calendar to approval. After a month of previews in these pages, it is deeply satisfying to move them from forecast to funded. Every one of those dollars is outside money our General Fund does not have to carry, and safer crossings and better-timed signals are improvements you feel on every trip across town, however you make it. Now the work shifts from paperwork to pavement, and I will flag schedules and construction impacts here before they reach your commute.
🌿 Environment & Sustainability
🔹 Our climate report card, graded: The study session put real numbers on the table. Burbank's 2024 community emissions came in just over one million metric tons of CO2e, roughly 10 metric tons per resident, which puts us about 12.8 percent below 1990 levels. Our adopted goal is 40 percent below 1990 by 2030. On the progress side: 14 of the plan's measures are complete, 54 are underway, and 53 are pending, backed by more than $415,000 in residential efficiency and electrification rebates last fiscal year, $550,000 in commercial EV infrastructure rebates, and over 108 public charging ports around town with more fast chargers planned.
→ 💬 My take: I promised you data first, decisions after, and here is the honest math: getting from 12.8 percent to 40 percent in four years is a steep climb. We pressed staff on rebate uptake and public charging access, and we asked them to rank the remaining measures by emission-reduction potential and cost, so our next dollars go where they cut the most carbon. The inventory will be published online, and I will keep translating each implementation item as it reaches the dais.
👉 Explore the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan
🏘️ Housing & Downtown's Future
🔹 What happens to your open-house comments: With both Downtown Specific Plan open houses wrapped, your maps, sticky notes, and comment cards are now with the planning team, who fold them into a revised draft before environmental review and formal public hearings, with the process expected to conclude in the first quarter of 2027. If you missed the open houses, written comments still count while the draft is under review. This plan will shape housing, walkability, and the character of our core for decades, which is exactly why the slow, thorough route is the right one.
💼 Economic Development & Local Business
🔹 Holiday in the Park wants you on the bill: Save the date first. On Friday, November 20, from 4 to 10 p.m., Magnolia Boulevard becomes Holiday in the Park, the free year-end celebration produced by the Mag Park Events nonprofit. The 2026 lineup is being assembled right now, and applications are open across the board.
→ 🎤 Performers: The Main Stage is booking bands, musicians, and live acts, while the Community Stage welcomes choirs, dance troupes, school and youth groups, and cultural performers. Applications for both close Thursday, October 8. Performances are unpaid and subject to selection, but the audience is enormous and entirely on your side.
👉 Apply for the Community Stage
→ 🎨 Artists: The juried Art Block showcases original work with no application or participation fee for selected artists, also due October 8. Speaking as a fiber artist who has hauled handmade work to plenty of community tables, a juried showcase with no entry fee is a gift. Take it.
→ 🤝 Businesses and sponsors: Booth applications are open, and here is where I will put my thumb on the scale: sponsorships are what keep this event free for every family on the boulevard. If your business or organization has been looking for a way to invest in Magnolia Park, this is it.
👉 Become a Community Partner sponsor
👉 Explore all Holiday in the Park opportunities
💚 Health & Wellbeing
🔹 Fall arrives tomorrow; adjust gently: The autumn equinox lands Tuesday afternoon, and as the evenings shorten, many people feel their energy and mood shift with the light. That is normal, and small anchors help more than we give them credit for: get morning light when you can, keep moving, and hold onto the social plans you are tempted to cancel. If the heaviness outlasts the season, for you or someone you love, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline remains free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day by call or text. Shorter days are easier when we walk through them together.
🧶 The Community Thread
🔹 The Autumn Arts Festival delivered: Johnny Carson Park on Saturday was three hours of everything I love about this city: rows of local artists, food trucks, kids on blankets, and The Velvonics closing out the afternoon. Thank you to our Parks and Recreation Department, the Cultural Arts Commission, and the Valley Cultural Foundation for building a festival that felt effortless to attend and clearly took months to plan. If a booth introduced you to a new favorite artist, follow them and show up to their next show. That is how a creative city stays one.
🔹 Arts around town: Two final calls and two fresh options. Pitch Puuurfect closes today, September 21, at the Salit Conservatory, and the California Japanese Ceramic Arts Guild exhibit at the Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center wraps Thursday, September 24. Still time remains for Rats by Sophie McNally at Gallery 839 through September 28, and Catch Me If You Can: The Musical is now on stage at the Colony Theatre.
👉 Browse the Burbank arts calendar
🗓️ Mark Your Calendar
🔹 The pool is back: The Verdugo Aquatic Facility reopens today, Monday, September 21, after its scheduled maintenance closure. Your laps missed you.
🔹 Time capsule ideas close Friday, September 25: Four days left. If an object, photo, or story says Burbank 2026 to you, the library needs to hear about it this week.
👉 Visit the Burbank Public Library site
🔹 State of the City, Thursday, October 15: The annual address and luncheon runs 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport, and my drafting continues under the theme Better Together. Nominations for accomplishments worth a shout-out from the podium are still open: reply with yours.
💡A Final Thought
This edition has more application links than any I can remember, and honestly, that delights me. A city's traditions do not assemble themselves. They are built by the choir that applies for the Community Stage, the painter who risks the juried table, the shop that sponsors a free night on Magnolia, and the resident who sends a climate question or an eComment before Council returns on the 29th. The lineup for this Burbank year is still being written, and there is room on it for you. If you apply for a stage, the Art Block, or a booth, tell me. Come November 20, I would love to know where to look for you.
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
