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Tamala Takahashi Newsletter — September 28, 2026
🌟 From the Dais with Mayor Tamala Takahashi | September 28, 2026
Good morning, Burbank,
My Anaheim suitcase was barely unzipped Saturday morning before the weekend swept me right back up. I spent the back half of last week at the League of California Cities conference, trading notes with electeds from small and mid-sized cities across the state, and I came home with a full notebook, a deeper conviction that Burbank's voice belongs in every state-level conversation, and one unexpected honor: the Community Services committee and the LA Division presented me with an award for my year of service as chair. The best part of Cal Cities is not the workshops, though. It is the reminder that no city solves anything alone. That idea, that we are all in this together, threads through everything in this edition, from tomorrow night's council agenda to a pantry on Burbank Boulevard that needs our help this Saturday. Let's get into it.
🏛️ Council Corner
🔹 No votes to report: Council was dark on Tuesday, September 22, which is exactly why you found me in Anaheim instead of in the chamber. The quiet week ends now.
🔹 Tomorrow night, the dais lights come back on: Council returns Tuesday, September 29, at 6 p.m., and the forecast is a full one. The evening includes a proclamation declaring October as National Community Planning Month, and a consent calendar carrying a $1,235,750 Homeland Security grant to build a new Emergency Operations Center for the City, plus a $50,000 agreement with Home Again Los Angeles to administer the Immigration Emergency Assistance Fund, which helps neighbors navigating genuinely frightening circumstances.
→ 💬 My take: The report I have now circled twice is the Creative Industry Taskforce's recommendations on strengthening Burbank's creative economy. As Council liaison to the Cultural Arts Commission, I have been waiting weeks for this one, and given the creative economy news further down this page, the timing could not be better. If you have thoughts on any item, the podium, Zoom, and eComment are all open to you, and I read every comment that comes through. Agendas can shift, so check the posted version before the meeting. Full vote results will be in next Monday's edition.
👉 View meeting agendas and eComment
🔹 The October rhythm: After tomorrow, Council goes dark October 6 and returns October 13. I will preview that agenda as it firms up.
🚌 Transportation Updates
🔹 Olive Bridge elevator, briefly out of service: Heads up for everyone who catches the train Downtown: the Metrolink elevator at the Olive Bridge (201 N. Front St.) and the stair access at the bridge will be closed from Thursday, October 1 through Tuesday, October 6, while crews complete concrete repairs on the upper portion of the bridge between the elevator and stairs. Six days of inconvenience for a safer bridge is a fair trade, but if you or someone you ride with relies on that elevator, please build in extra time and plan an alternate route this week. Infrastructure work is rarely glamorous, and it is exactly the kind of maintenance I never want us to defer.
🏘️ Housing & Development
🔹 Five seats at the Rancho table: The Community Development Department opened applications Friday, September 25, for five seats on the Rancho Review Board, with a deadline of Friday, October 16, at 5 p.m. Plain-English version: every Development Review project inside the Rancho Master Plan Area gets checked by this resident board for compliance with the Rancho zoning rules. It is advisory, so the board recommends rather than decides, but those recommendations shape how projects fit the neighborhood's distinctive equestrian character. I believe deeply that development review works best when residents are in the room, not just in the audience. If the Rancho is your home or your passion, this is your invitation.
👉 Apply for the Rancho Review Board
💼 Economic Development & Local Business
🔹 A new film studio picks Burbank: SuperCinema, a new independent studio from the team behind cinematic content company CONCRETE, announced it will anchor itself with a brand-new campus in the heart of our Media District, minutes from Disney and Warner Bros. The plans include three stages, an LED volume stage, post-production facilities, and collaborative workspaces, with the first phase of construction slated for completion in early 2027. I welcomed them on behalf of the City in the official announcement, and I will repeat the heart of it here: Burbank is where creativity, innovation, and entertainment come together, and their investment brings new energy and opportunity to our community.
👉 Read the City's announcement
🔹 A win in Sacramento for post-production jobs: Governor Newsom signed AB 2319 by our own Assemblymember Nick Schultz, establishing the California Post-Production Tax Credit program, a targeted incentive to keep film and television post-production work here in California. Why it matters at home: Burbank's editors, sound mixers, colorists, and VFX artists are the quiet backbone of our media economy, and for years that work has been drifting to other states and countries. This is the kind of state-level advocacy I sat through so many Cal Cities sessions about last week, because decisions made in Sacramento land on streets like ours.
🔹 Ten days left for Holiday in the Park hopefuls: Applications for the Main Stage, the Community Stage, and the juried Art Block at the November 20 Holiday in the Park celebration all close Thursday, October 8. If you have been circling the idea, this is your ten-day warning. Selected Art Block artists pay no application or participation fee, and the Magnolia Boulevard audience could not be friendlier.
💚 Health & Wellbeing
🔹 Burbank turns pink on Thursday: October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and it opens with one of our community's most moving traditions. The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center at Providence Saint Joseph (181 S. Buena Vista St.) hosts its annual Pink Lighting Ceremony on Thursday, October 1: doors at 5 p.m., program at 6, and the building glows pink at 7. The free evening includes remarks from cancer care leaders and information about screening and breast health resources. From my years of clinical work, I can tell you a diagnosis lands on the whole family, not just the patient, and gatherings like this help everyone carry it. Come honor a survivor, remember a loved one, and then book the screening you have been putting off.
👉 Get Pink Lighting Ceremony details
🔹 Ten years of neighbors taking on cancer: Tequilas Burbank and community advocate Ashley Erikson launched their tenth annual cancer fundraiser last week, with a $15,000 goal supporting the genetics and genomics program at the Disney Family Cancer Center. This year's campaign runs through October 22 and honors the memory of Julie Franco, whose compassion inspired the effort. The October 21 dinner is already sold out, which tells you everything about how Burbank shows up, but direct donations are open all month, and over the past decade this partnership has raised more than $62,000 for cancer services close to home. A restaurant, one determined advocate, and ten years of persistence: that is how community health gets funded.
🧶 The Community Thread
🔹 Ninety years of Zonta: Saturday afternoon, I had the joy of celebrating Zonta Burbank's 90th anniversary and honoring the remarkable Gloria Salas. As a proud Zonta member, I left grateful for every person in that room and for nine decades of work promoting the health and safety of women and girls. Organizations do not reach 90 by accident. They reach it by showing up, year after year, for people who need them.
🔹 New badges at Burbank Fire: Last Tuesday, I attended the Burbank Fire Department's Promotional Ceremony, where we celebrated firefighters and staff stepping into new roles. Watching families pin badges on their people never gets old. We are fortunate to have a fire department of this caliber, and I thanked them in person for all they do.
🔹 Thirty-five years of Armenian independence: September 21 marked 35 years since Armenia declared its independence, and I was glad to send my congratulations to our Armenian neighbors, in Armenian, no less. Burbank's Armenian community is woven through every part of this city's story, and this milestone deserved the celebration it received.
🔹 Japan Day at Muir, thirteen years strong: On September 18, John Muir Middle School hosted its thirteenth annual Japan Day with sister school Rebun High School, welcoming 13 visiting Japanese students and their chaperones for a day of performances and friendship, coordinated by Muir teacher Ted DeVirgilis. Sister-school exchanges like this one turn geography lessons into lifelong memories, and they are exactly the kind of citizen diplomacy I love seeing our schools invest in. Bravo, Muir.
🔹 Arts around town: Last call: Rats by Sophie McNally closes today, September 28, at Gallery 839. Catch Me If You Can: The Musical continues at the Colony Theatre through October 18, and KAIJU, a world premiere from The Road Theatre Company, opened September 25 and runs through November 1 just over the line in North Hollywood. Looking ahead, photographer Eric Renard's L.A. Overexposed opens at the Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center with a reception Friday, October 2, from 7 to 9 p.m., on view through October 22.
👉 Browse the Burbank arts calendar
🗓️ Mark Your Calendar
🔹 First stop Saturday: BTAC's pantry: Before you dive into everything happening October 3, I have one ask. The Burbank Temporary Aid Center is stocking its pantry ahead of the holiday season, and after a decade in the nonprofit world, I can tell you the quiet weeks before the holidays are exactly when the shelves need us most. Grab a bag of pantry staples, easy-open canned proteins, fruits, and vegetables, cereal, pasta, or hygiene essentials like toothpaste, deodorant, diapers, and wipes, and drop it off on your way to your Saturday plans. My full donation idea list is on Instagram.
👉 See my donation list (Instagram)
🔹 Then pick your October 3 adventure: This Saturday is gloriously overbooked. The third annual Burbank Book Festival fills the Buena Vista Library from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with authors, readers, and story lovers, all free. Boo Bash brings the Halloween fun to the Adult School, the Rose Float craft faire takes over the BWP campus in support of our Rose Parade entry, and a kids arts festival lands at GAIN. Whatever you choose, you cannot choose wrong.
🔹 State of the City, Thursday, October 15: Just over two weeks out. The annual address and luncheon runs 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport, the theme is Better Together, and my draft is getting sharper by the week. Nominations for accomplishments worth a shout-out from the podium are still open: reply with yours.
🔹 Time capsule ideas are in: The library's collection window for the 2026 time capsule closed Friday, September 25. Thank you to everyone who sent in an object, photo, or story that says Burbank 2026. I cannot wait to see what makes the cut.
💡A Final Thought
Somewhere between an Anaheim conference room and a Saturday celebration of Zonta's 90 years, the same lesson kept surfacing: nothing that lasts in a city is built solo. A state tax credit protects local jobs because someone advocated for it. A cancer program grows because a restaurant and an advocate refused to quit for ten years. A pantry feeds families because neighbors filled a grocery bag on their way to a book festival. This week hands you three easy ways in: send an eComment before tomorrow's 6 p.m. meeting, show up pink on Thursday, or bring a bag to BTAC on Saturday. Pick one. I will be doing all three alongside 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
