Towns Practice Pitches to Save Bases

By Patricia Ward Biederman

Jan. 25, 2005 12 AM PT

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Times Staff Writer

When the Pentagon first began closing military bases in 1988, California was caught off guard.

The state didn’t mount a coordinated effort to save bases and lost over 20 installations, including El Toro in Orange County, the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, the Presidio of San Francisco and Ft. Ord near Monterey.

With Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set to announce another hit list in May, California officials over the last weeks have been honing their message to Washington on why the remaining bases in the state should stay open.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed a bipartisan state council to advise local communities fighting to keep their bases open, offering one main message: Instead of bemoaning the economic pain of closures -- a common tactic in the past -- tell the Department of Defense why it needs its 62 remaining California military installations.

The strategy is part of an effort by base supporters to fight smarter for California installations in the upcoming round of closures.

Previously, supporters of one base sometimes pointed to another base in hopes of saving themselves. To avoid that, advocates for all the installations are being asked to sign a “nonaggression compact” under which each community group agrees to work together for the greater good.

The state has allocated about $500,000 this fiscal year toward the campaign to save bases. It also holds weekly conference calls to discuss strategy with parties committed to keeping bases open.

This month, the California Council on Base Support and Retention held meetings throughout the state, giving communities a chance to practice their pitches for base retention.

“It’s kind of like spring training for the communities to test out their arguments,” said James Spagnole, director of the state’s Office of Military and Aerospace Support.

Eventually, the groups will have to persuade Pentagon decision makers, who will advise the Base Realignment and Closure Commission that is to be appointed by the president and Congress in March.

Range of Facilities

California’s remaining installations include massive facilities, such as Camp Pendleton and Edwards Air Force Base, and lesser-known facilities, such as Los Angeles Air Force Base near Los Angeles International Airport.

No one knows how many bases might be targeted. Some officials have expressed concern that Los Angeles Air Force Base, which develops and acquires satellite systems, might be vulnerable, but the Pentagon has not confirmed this.

The loss of military bases since 1988 has had a profound effect on California, the hardest-hit state. The state lost more than 90,000 defense-related jobs in four earlier rounds. According to Leon Panetta, co-chairman of the state council and a former Clinton White House chief of staff, the closures dealt an estimated $9.6-billion blow to the state’s economy.

The process spawned a bitter debate in Orange County over whether to build a commercial airport at El Toro, and Long Beach’s economy was hit hard when the shipyard and its 3,100 jobs were cut.

Officials see more economic pain and community turmoil ahead if additional bases are closed. Rumsfeld has said he would like to reduce “military infrastructure” by as much as 24%. In keeping with the broader strategy, local officials are focusing less on how closure would hurt their communities and more on what the bases can do for the military.

“The military needs these resources as much as the county needs the military,” said Kern County Supervisor Jon McQuiston, a former Navy air traffic controller.

Kern County is home to parts of Edwards Air Force Base and the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the Navy’s main facility for the development, testing and evaluation of weapons, including the Sidewinder missile. The military is the largest employer in Kern County, providing more than 16,000 jobs, McQuiston said. This year, the county is putting $30,000 into each of three regional alliances promoting base retention.

Recently in Lancaster, the California Council on Base Support and Retention held meetings with community advocates for Edwards Air Force Base, renowned for its testing and evaluation of military air and spacecraft; the China Lake facility; and Lemoore Naval Air Station in Kings County.

Phil Arnold said he and colleagues in the China Lake Defense Alliance have been working to protect the Mojave Desert facility since the last round of closings a decade ago. Now retired, like many base advocates, Arnold was an engineer and manager at China Lake for 38 years. He said he believes the state is much better prepared to fight closings than it was in 1995.

At that time, Arnold said: “California did not have an organized program. Every community was on its own defending its own base.”

Arnold meets with a group of six to 12 China Lake supporters every two weeks to talk about its future. Several times a year, they fly to Washington to brief their lobbyist, meet with congressional representatives and see what competing bases are up to: “We make the rounds,” he said.

They know that Rumsfeld is determined to transform the military, making it smaller, more agile and more collaborative, Arnold said. Many of the speakers at the council’s public forums talked about “transformation,” “joint service operations” and “network-centric warfare” -- the language they believe Rumsfeld wants to hear.

In El Segundo recently, supporters of Los Angeles Air Force Base also made their pitch. The base is the home of the Space and Missile Systems Center, which develops and acquires military and national security-related space systems. Its advocacy group, the Los Angeles Air Force Base Regional Alliance, is one of the state’s largest, with a $600,000 budget.

The base has about 4,500 employees and contracts for technical support from the Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit federal research center in El Segundo with about 3,000 employees. A recent report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. estimated that the base supports 50,000 jobs in Los Angeles County and 112,000 across the state, including many jobs at companies that receive contracts from the base. The report estimated that the base generates $16 billion of economic activity in the state.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) praised the Space and Missile Systems Center as a “national treasure,” responsible for 39 successful satellite launches.

“We always joke that this is a base with vertical runways,” Harman said. “It doesn’t look like a base in the conventional sense.”

Sales Campaign

Some base advocates have created marketing materials as slick as travel brochures. In a color booklet, Naval Base Ventura County boasts of its deep-water harbor at Port Hueneme, the only Navy-controlled harbor between San Diego and Puget Sound.

Since Ventura County’s naval facilities were spared in the 1995 closures, they have joined forces. The missile testing facility at Point Mugu and the Seabee base in Port Hueneme merged into Naval Base Ventura County, with a workforce of more than 14,700.

“We’ve been working on a strategy so we stay off that list,” said Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, co-chair of the local base realignment task force. “I think, frankly, we’ve done a good job in organizing, lobbying and putting white papers together that state our position. I feel pretty good, but we have to see what evolves over the next couple of months.”

Intellectual Capital

Others said the concentration of top-notch universities and the desire of so many intelligent, well-educated people to live in California is a major reason to keep bases here.

Retired Army Gen. William Jefferds, a member of the state base retention council, said critical staff members balked when the Army decided in 1995 to cut costs by relocating its Defense Language Institute in Monterey to Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. When the faculty said “no way,” the language school stayed put.

One community is not clamoring to save its base.

This month, officials in the Bay Area city of Concord broke ranks and asked the council to recommend closing its small Concord Naval Weapons Station. The base sits on land worth about $1 billion, and Concord officials said developing it for nonmilitary use would be an economic bonanza.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Military base closures

Between 1988 and 1995, commissions appointed to recommend military base realignments and closures picked more than 20 major military installations in California to be shut down.

Facilities chosen for closure:

(By region, with the year the commission recommended closure)

Central California

1988

Mather Air Force Base

1991

Castle Air Force Base

Sacramento Army Depot

1995

McClellan Air Force Base

Bay Area

1988