Few Military Cuts for San Diego : Budget: The city would lose three submarines and a cruiser, and the Navy’s El Centro air base would be closed.

Although San Diego could lose three submarines and one nuclear-powered cruiser under the Pentagon’s new fiscal blueprint announced Monday, Navy officials said the city’s military would otherwise remain relatively untouched by the budget that threatens to shut bases and mothball 23 vessels.

“To me, it says that San Diego is so darn important that precious little was touched,” said Rear Adm. John W. Adams, commander of San Diego Naval Base.

In an effort to cut costs, Navy officials proposed early retirement for eight nuclear-powered attack submarines, including three in San Diego, as well as two nuclear-powered cruisers--one from San Diego. The San Diego submarines, scheduled to be retired in fiscal year 1991, are the Guardfish, Flasher and Permit. The cruiser Truxtun would be retired the following year, said Lt. Cmdr. Bob Anderson, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The submarines, commissioned in the early- and mid-1960s, usually serve about 30 years before being retired, Adams said. The deactivation of these submarines accelerates their planned retirement by several years. And San Diego is also scheduled to receive a nuclear-powered Seawolfe submarine in 1992, which will lessen the impact of losing the others, he said.

The loss of these vessels is minimal compared to what other areas may feel, many say. Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) said San Diego might even benefit from the proposed closing of 60 military bases and 12 overseas installations.

“I expect some would likely be transferred to San Diego,” said Lowery, who breakfasted Monday with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. “San Diego is well-positioned in terms of defense commitment and flow of defense dollars into the county. The fact that we have not been slated for closures shows that the military plans to stay and is not looking to decrease their mission here at all.”

As evidence of that commitment, Lowery points to a proposed $168 million scheduled for military construction in the San Diego area for fiscal 1991. That figure, however is a decrease from this fiscal year’s $194 million, according to figures from Lowery’s office. The new construction would include $43.7 million for housing at Camp Pendleton and San Diego-area bases, an $11.8-million research laboratory at the San Diego Naval Oceans System center and a $4-million academic facility for the Top Gun School at Miramar Naval Air Station.

“As bases are closed, those remaining must be maintained in a high degree of readiness,” Lowery said.

Throughout San Diego, military officials tried to evaluate their standing.

Personnel at Camp Pendleton may be reduced, “but how many we lose we really don’t know,” said spokesman Lt. Patrick Gibbons.

And officials also began to calculate how they will be affected by proposed base closings such as that of El Centro Naval Air Facility, a 2,289-acre base that has a 54,000-acre bombing range used by Navy pilots from throughout the state. El Centro, winter home of the Blue Angels demonstration flight team, has two runways and is host to about 11,000 flight exercises monthly. Miramar Naval Air Station, which conducts about the same number of exercises, traditionally has sent its overflow to El Centro, 108 miles away, to practice.

Miramar spokeswoman Bobbie Carlton declined to comment on how the proposed closing might affect San Diego’s master jet station.

However, Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard, spokesman of the Pacific Fleet’s Naval Air Station, said it is unlikely that many of El Centro’s activities will be shifted to Miramar.

“A lot of their mission does not fit into Miramar, where there is high-density populations at both ends of the runway,” Howard said. “You can’t practice bombing without buying up a significant amount of new range. And, where are you going to get that property in North County?”