Cities Won’t End Fight to Reroute Air Wing Away From Point Mugu

Camarillo, Palmdale and Lancaster have not surrendered to the Air Force, not quite yet.

Leaders of the three communities, which have been involved in a dispute over the movement of an Air National Guard unit, said they still hold a slim hope of overturning a decision by the Air Force to transfer the unit from Van Nuys Airport to the Point Mugu Naval Air Station near Camarillo.

Elected officials of the three cities have no quarrel with each other. The mayors and city councils of Palmdale and Lancaster appealed to have the unit, the 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, moved to an Air Force Base in Palmdale, Air Force Plant 42.

So did officials of Camarillo, who protested that they did not want the wing based at Point Mugu, complaining that it would bring noise, pollution and safety problems.

Nevertheless, Deputy Asst. Secretary of the Air Force James F. Boatright, in a decision made public Tuesday, ruled that the unit would be sent to Point Mugu.

There still is a chance that the transfer could be prevented by community pressure on congressional budget-writers, said Camarillo City Councilman Bill Esty, a leader of the protest movement since he was mayor last year.

Earlier protests by Camarillo caused the House subcommittee on military construction to remove $5 million, meant to buy land for the wing at Point Mugu, from the proposed Defense Department budget, he said.

Because the money was included in the budget accepted by the Senate, the issue was referred to a conference committee.

“As far as I’m concerned, if they don’t have the $5 million to purchase the land at Point Mugu, it’s still up for grabs,” Esty said. “Last Friday we put together a letter to every member of the House and Senate on that joint committee, asking them . . . not to approve the $5 million unless it was needed to move to Palmdale.”

Palmdale Mayor Alfred Beasley said he intended to confer with his city manager and city attorney about the wing’s transfer. “If the decision isn’t completely final, we’ll try to develop a strategy to get it here,” he said.

The wing must move from Van Nuys Airport because the Defense Department’s $1-a-year lease on its base, a condition when the federal government donated the airport to the city after World War II, expired this year. The city set fees of more than $2.6 million a year if the guard does not vacate the site by the end of 1989.

Air Guard officers wanted to move anyway, saying Van Nuys Airport has become too crowded with civilian light planes and is too difficult to guard.

When the search narrowed to two leading candidates--Point Mugu and Palmdale--the three cities mounted an intense campaign, lobbying the governor’s office and state and federal legislators.

Officers of the wing, with the backing of state National Guard headquarters, argued that the wing should move to Point Mugu, citing the need for personnel to keep alive the unit, which has 1,500 members, all volunteers.

They contended that Point Mugu is surrounded by a bigger pool of potential recruits, and that the coastal location is favored by the pilots and full-time personnel who are the core of the unit and who might resign if unhappy with the new location.