Base Areas on the Defensive

By Tony Perry

May 5, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO —

The Pentagon’s list of recommended military base closures expected later this month has already struck economic fear among officials from states with bases.

Nowhere is that apprehension greater than in California, which has 30 major bases and dozens of smaller military installations, 11.3% of the nation’s total. That is more than any other state, according to the California Institute for Federal Policy Research.

The release of the Pentagon’s list will start a nationwide, base-by-base review by a presidential commission that will forward its findings to President Bush and Congress for a final decision.

Four previous rounds of base closures show that being on the Pentagon’s initial list is virtually a death knell: Nearly 85% of bases listed by the Pentagon have been closed or downsized.

To protect its bases, California’s politicians, civic groups and military boosters have been vigorously lobbying the Pentagon for months.

One of the more expensive lobbying efforts has been waged by the Los Angeles Air Force Base Regional Alliance, which has spent more than $1 million in defense of the base.

Smaller communities may have spent less, but their campaigns have been equally vigorous.

“We’re in full defense mode,” said Patricia Morris, a city official in Barstow, which is trying to save a Marine Corps vehicle repair facility.

“My heart will be pumping hard until I see that list,” said retired Air Force Col. Phil Rizzo, leading the effort to save March Air Reserve Base in Riverside.

“We’ll fight all the way,” said San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy; San Diego County has six major Navy and Marine Corps bases, more bases than any other region.

By law, the Pentagon has until May 16 to release the list, but local officials expect it sooner.

For California, the possible losses are enormous. Defense spending in the state is approximately $39 billion a year, with 279,000 people on the payroll, including active-duty military, civilians, reservists and the National Guard, according to the California Council on Base Support and Retention, formed in November by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a letter to President Bush this week, Schwarzenegger wrote that California supports the nation’s military “better than any other state.”

Even before the governor formed his committee to save California bases, communities had launched their own efforts to persuade the Pentagon to spare local facilities.

Part of California’s civic fright is the result of its having lost more bases and more jobs than any other state in the post-Cold War cutbacks of 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995. California lost 29 bases, more than 93,000 jobs and an estimated $10 billion a year in revenue.

Despite California’s lobbying efforts, this year’s base closings may be even less susceptible to lobbying and politicking than previous rounds. The law has been changed to make it more difficult for the Base Realignment and Closure Commission appointed by Bush to alter the Pentagon’s closure list.

Also, the Pentagon’s stated priorities for selecting which bases to close or realign have been amended to place an even greater emphasis on getting troops ready for combat and forcing branches of the military to cooperate.

Information about job loss and other economic effects of base closing is less important in the Pentagon playbook. Pleas late last year from cities and counties for the Pentagon to give greater weight to economic factors were not successful.

The closure commission began hearings this week in Washington to map its review process once the Pentagon’s list is released.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to transform the U.S. military is evolving, making it difficult to determine which bases -- particularly which smaller ones -- fit into his thinking, said John Pike, director of Washington-based www.globalsecurity.org, which analyzes U.S. military trends.

Still, California officials argue that bases in their communities have supported U.S. offensives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cargo planes from Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield have been essential to getting troops and equipment to both regions, they said. Beale Air Force Base in Yuba City is home to the U-2 spy plane and the unmanned reconnaissance vehicle called GlobalHawk, which the Marine Corps said was vital during the November battle for Fallouja.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Alice Astafan, now chief executive of a Sacramento-area business development firm, carried that message to Washington. The two Northern California bases, she said, are nothing less than “absolutely vital to American defense.”

Lassen County Supervisor John Hanson said he is confident the Pentagon will realize that troops in Iraq benefit from the logistics support and the retrofitting of Humvees being done by the Sierra Army Depot. With 800 employees, the depot is also the biggest employer in a county of 25,000.

San Diego officials note that Marines trained at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and based at Camp Pendleton, backed by San Diego-based ships and warplanes, played a decisive role in toppling the Taliban and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Monterey is lobbying to save its facilities, including the Defense Language Institute and Naval Postgraduate School. The postgraduate school was on the 1993 list and is one of the few facilities saved when the Base Realignment and Closure Commission overruled the Pentagon.

Still, Monterey has received a federal grant to plan what to do if one of its bases was closed.

“We’re not planning to lose our facilities. We’re not expecting to lose them,” said Fred Cohn, deputy city manager in Monterey. “But it wouldn’t be prudent if we didn’t contemplate that possibility.”

Cohn noted that federal law prohibits a facility from being targeted for closure based on the surrounding community’s having received a planning grant.

The Oxnard Harbor District has an idea for converting some of the wharves at Port Hueneme to civilian use if Naval Base Ventura County was closed or downsized.

Without advocating the base’s closure, port officials have pitched their idea to the Pentagon, angering local officials on a civic committee trying to keep the base off the hit list.

“If you use the wrong words, it’s like feeding raw meat to the system,” said committee member Tom Nielsen.

In other locales, governments are working to ensure that Pentagon planners not get the wrong idea about a lack of public support.

In Riverside County, planning directors of cities near March Air Reserve Base are promoting a model ordinance to restrict building near the base.

In San Diego, officials pressured the airport commission to stop even talking about possible use of the Marine recruit depot, Camp Pendleton or Miramar Marine Corps Air Station for a civilian airport to replace the cramped Lindbergh Field, lest such talk lead the Pentagon to believe San Diegans are not united in their effort to save their bases.

In previous Base Realignment and Closure Commission rounds, the nine-member commission could replace a facility on the Pentagon’s list with one of the commission’s choosing with a simple majority of five votes. Now that process takes seven votes. The commission is required to forward its list of recommendations to the president.

At a recent congressional hearing, Philip Grone, deputy undersecretary of defense for installation and environment, said the Pentagon may start shutting down construction projects at bases even before the commission makes its final recommendations.

Once the commission rules on the Pentagon’s proposals, the president has the option of accepting or rejecting the list in its entirety -- all or nothing. If he accepts the list, it goes to Congress, which has the same options.

Although it lacks planes or a runway, the Los Angeles Air Force base employs thousands of engineers and specialists involved in the design and purchase of satellites, launch vehicles and satellite ground stations -- the kind of technology used in the air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have the infrastructure to accomplish the space mission like no place in the world,” said Redondo Beach Councilman John Parsons, a leader of the Los Angeles Air Force Base Regional Alliance. “We’re talking about mission success and lives saved.”

And how is Parsons feeling as the unveiling of the Pentagon list nears?

“I’m nervous,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Military bases in California

As a new round of military base closures looms, state and local officials brace for cuts affecting armed forces facilities in the Golden State. These are among the major facilities currently operating and some closed in previous rounds:

Among those still open:

North-Central California

* Beale Air Force Base

Bay Area/Monterey

* Camp Parks Army Reserve Forces Training Area

* Concord Naval Weapons Station

* Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center

* Ft. Hunter-Liggett

* Monterey Naval Postgraduate School

* Presidio of Monterey

* Travis Air Force Base

Southern California

* Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base

* Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base

* China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center

* Coronado Naval Base

* Edwards Air Force Base

* El Centro Naval Air Facility

* Ft. Irwin Army National Training Center

* Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base

* Los Angeles Air Force Base

* March Air Reserve Base

* Marine Corps Twentynine Palms Air Ground Combat Center

* Miramar Marine Corps Air Station

* Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division

* North Island Naval Air Systems Command Depot

* Point Mugu Naval Air Station

* Port Hueneme Construction Batallion Center

* San Clemente Island Range Complex

* San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot

* San Diego Naval Station

* San Diego Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center

* Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station

* Vandenberg Air Force Base

* Ventura County Naval Base

In other areas

* Lemoore Naval Air Station

* Sierra Army Depot

* Chocolate Mountain Aerial Bombing and Gunnery Range

Previously cut

California is the state with the most military bases and personnel. But it also lost 54% of the military jobs, compared with 46% for the rest of the United States, in the four previous rounds of cuts. Here are the major facilities already shut down in the state:*

North-Central California

1988

* Mather Air Force Base

1991

* Castle Air Force Base

* Sacramento Army Depot

1995

* McClellan Air Force Base

Bay Area/Monterey

1988

* Presidio of San Francisco

1991