Shift From Van Nuys Airport : Air Wing Breaks Ground at Point Mugu

An Air National Guard wing based at Van Nuys Airport broke ground Saturday for construction of a new home at Point Mugu on the Ventura County coast, beginning the last act of a years-long dispute over the wing’s future.

Three of its four-engine cargo planes roared overhead in a ceremonial fly-past, and the wing’s band played as officers posted a joint color guard at the Pacific Missile Test Center, a Navy air station at Point Mugu, just south of Oxnard.

The 1,500-person 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, the largest Air National Guard wing in the United States, will move from its World War II-era buildings in Van Nuys into a new $86-milllion base on the naval station during the next 2 1/2 years.

State Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, and Ventura County Supervisor Madge Schaefer spoke during the ground-breaking ceremonies, along with the commanders of the Navy base, Rear Adm. Richard C. Gentz and Brig. Gen. Emiel T. Bouckaert.

McClintock summed up sentiments by calling the occasion “a proud and happy day for Ventura County” that would result in “an economic windfall of tremendous proportions” by bringing millions of dollars in construction as well as thousands of jobs to the area.

“Today we celebrate the direct cash injection of nearly $3 million dollars into the local economy,” he said. “To be the home of the 146th is one of the most sought-after distinctions and assets that a community could win.”

The wing and its predecessor units have been based at Van Nuys Airport since the U.S. government donated the WWII Army Air Forces base to the City of Los Angeles in 1947. The city agreed to provide a home for the Air Guard unit as a condition of the transfer.

The wing’s departure, which a spokesman said would be complete by December, 1989, will leave the airport without a military role for the first time since the U.S. Army commandeered what was then a privately owned airstrip in a semi-rural area only hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

When the wing began hunting for a new home in the early 1980s, it became involved in a three-way tug of war with the cities of Camarillo, Palmdale and Lancaster.

Many of the unit’s top officers favored a move to Point Mugu, saying that would be a better location for recruiting and retaining personnel, especially young recruits and the full-time members who keep the unit functioning from day to day. About 350 of the 1,500 members are full-timers. The unit flies an average of 43 flights a week for the Air Force or the state.

For three years, during a complicated selection process that wound its way through the state and federal bureaucracies, the Air Guard pushed for a move to Point Mugu while fending off the ardent courtship of Palmdale and Lancaster.

An Air Force Decision

In the end, the decision to go to Mugu was made by the Air Force, which provides 98% of the California Air Guard’s budget.

The Air Guard began looking for a new home because, in recent years, heavy light-plane traffic made military-style flying impossible, for safety reasons. Until last year, Van Nuys was the third-busiest airport in the United States in number of takeoffs and landings.

Financial pressures had also increased. In 1985, the Defense Department’s $1-a-year lease on the Air Guard base expired. The Department of Airports--keenly aware that at current lease rates, the Air Guard’s 62-acre base could be worth as much as $1.5 million a year to the city--did not encourage it to stay.

The Air Guard’s departure from Van Nuys is expected to usher in another dispute: What should be done with the base?

A number of developers have been eyeing the site for years, waiting for it to become available for aviation-related ventures, airport sources say.

But groups of anti-noise homeowners, with growing experience in fighting airport development, have braced themselves for years to do battle over the coming vacancy in the northwest corner of the airport. Preventing the parcel from falling into the hands of tenants who might increase air traffic is one of their top priorities, they say.

Times staff writer Meg Sullivan contributed to this story.