Folding the Fort : County Dependent on Ft. Ord Ponders What Future May Hold Without Base

A disagreement is brewing nowadays among the managers of the Thunderbird Motel near Ft. Ord, a debate echoed throughout the Monterey Peninsula. In the past they worried about the size of the discount afforded military families. Now the issue is the region’s future.

“The owner seems optimistic, but I am not so sure,” said motel manager Patricia Celaya. “He thinks tourism will fill the gap, but I don’t see how it can. Most of our business depends on Ft. Ord.”

Shopkeepers and business owners in the gritty military cities of Seaside and Marina are working hard not to believe it, but it is getting more and more difficult to ignore reports that the Army is considering closing Ft. Ord.

At stake is not only a full third of Monterey County’s economy but also 28,057 acres of oceanfront property in one of the most beautiful resort areas in the world.

Separate reports earlier this month in two independent but authoritative publications, Army Times and Armed Forces Journal International, quoted Army planners as saying the service is considering closing the dune-covered fort and transferring its main tenant, the 7th Infantry Division (Light), to Ft. Lewis near Tacoma, Wash.

Army officials reached by The Times said such reports are “speculative” but declined to call them inaccurate. That response is fueling speculation on the Monterey Peninsula about what might happen to the region’s economy without Ft. Ord and what might happen to the land under Ft. Ord without the Army.

“I’ll bet there are a lot of real estate people just licking their lips over this,” one state official said privately. “This could well turn into a real battle royal.”

In an effort to head off a political dogfight over the fort site, Monterey County Supervisor Sam P. Karas, whose district includes Ft. Ord, said he is going to insist on including the post for the first time in local land-use plans when those plans come up for updating and review in 1990.

“I don’t want to see Ft. Ord close and I don’t expect it to close,” he said, echoing the optimistic attitude adopted by most local politicians on this issue, “but we have to consider that it could happen some day, and we must start planning for that now.”

Among the ideas proffered by Karas and others are large tracts of low- and moderate- income housing, which are in short supply in this resort area; a light-industrial park to supplant the jobs lost if the Army leaves; a new state or federal park; luxury housing for affluent retirees who have long favored the area, and resort hotels to expand the region’s reputation as a world-class vacation destination.

Others, such as Jack Liebster of the California Coastal Commission, have looked to the examples set by the transformations of Ft. Mason and the Presidio in San Francisco and suggest converting Ft. Ord into a state or national park supported by renting the military buildings to nonprofit peace, arts and environmental groups.

Until this week, little thought had ever been given to the idea of what to do with the land should the Army quit Ft. Ord, which was established in the early part of the century as a maneuver area and field artillery target range for units stationed at the 220-year-old Presidio in downtown Monterey.

The post now houses the 7th Infantry (Light), a weapons-testing laboratory known as TEXCOM Experimentation Center and the Silas B. Hays Army Community Hospital. It also serves as the command post for Defense Language Institute in Monterey and Ft. Hunter Liggett in southern Monterey County. Together, the three facilities are staffed by 20,487 men and women, of which 15,951 serve at Ft. Ord.

Most of the post lies within the formal city limits of Seaside, which flanks the post to the south, and Marina, which sits just to the north; neither city has mapped out any alternative use for the land in their general plans. Nor has Monterey County made any contingencies in its general plan or coastal plan, despite a Coastal Commission request to do so more than a decade ago.

“It was always talked about but never undertaken,” said Nick Papadakis of the Assn. of Monterey Bay Area Governments. “I don’t think that the leaders of the various local communities wanted to appear pessimistic about the future of the base.”

But the Army is looking for ways to cut its budget in light of the collapse of European communism and the stubborn federal budget deficit. Closure of Ft. Ord was mentioned as a possible option before the recent invasion of Panama, but the rumors heated up after the Army experienced difficulty in transporting 7th Infantry troops 150 miles to Travis Air Force Base--where they were socked in by fog.

However, closing the facility will not be easy, if only because it enjoys the ardent support of Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey), an influential member of the House Budget Committee.

“Absolutely no decision has been made on this,” he said, “and it will not appear in the (Army’s) Fiscal Year 1991 budget.”

Panetta said he will resist efforts to close Ft. Ord and move the 7th Infantry, a key element of the Rapid Deployment Force that distinguished itself in the Panama invasion, because he said relocating the unit outside of California--particularly to a post hundreds of miles to the north--is militarily unsound.

He added that Ft. Ord offers things not found at Ft. Lewis, such as good weather allowing year-round training, the advantage of sprawling 165,000-acre Ft. Hunter Liggett nearby for field maneuvers and a recent expansion of on-post housing that Panetta said makes Ft. Ord among the best in the country at housing its troops.

Although he said he plans to sponsor legislation in the coming congressional session to protect the scenic seafront sand dunes that flank California 1, Panetta discounted the need for added legislation or planning for the fort.

“I don’t think that there is a need for contingencies at this point,” he said.

Local officials are not so certain.

They worry because Ft. Ord, and the military families and retirees drawn to it--a population estimated at 92,866, roughly one of every four people in the county and well over half the people on the Monterey Peninsula itself--are a critical part of the regional economy.

Lauren C. Wilkins of the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau said the military ranks alongside tourism and agriculture as a staple of the local economy.

Papadakis, of the Assn. of Monterey Bay Area Governments, said each of the three elements contribute about $1 billion each to the county economy. The reports about Ft. Ord are of such exceptional local concern because, if true, they would mean the complete loss of one of those sectors.

Hardest hit, he said, would be the dozens of convenience stores, motels, video-rental shops and other small businesses that line the streets of Seaside and Marina.

“For them, (losing military trade) would be a significant enough proportion of their business that they might go out of business without it,” he said.

Which is what Celaya, the Seaside motel manager, has been saying all along.

“Marina will be wiped out, and Seaside will be hurt bad,” she said, adding that she has postponed plans to buy a new house in Seaside.

“I’d be real scared if I owned any property here,” she said. “If anyone asked, I’d tell them to sell now while the selling is good.”