Other Areas Vying for El Segundo Space Base : Defense: South Bay facility may be closed because of military budget cuts. Thousands of jobs could go with it.
Business leaders in Southern California’s Inland Empire, Albuquerque, N.M., and Colorado Springs, Colo., are lobbying hard to land two highly prized space research and development facilities that could be moved from El Segundo if the federal government decides to close the Air Force base there.
The base is one of five in the country that the Air Force may shut down as part of a government drive to reduce defense spending and streamline the military.
Closure would mean moving the base’s main component, the 3,200-employee Air Force Space Systems Division, and probably the Aerospace Corp., a private, nonprofit employer of 4,000 that works closely with the Air Force division from its headquarters bordering the base.
Local business leaders have only recently begun trying to save the space facilities, considered key players in the area’s aerospace industry. They are clearly unnerved by the competition from rivals in Riverside, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs, which have been mentioned as possible relocation sites.
“There is growing alarm about this,” said Bill Mason, president-elect of the El Segundo Chamber of Commerce. “It would have a serious impact on business in the L.A. Basin and particularly in the South Bay area.”
So far, Gov. George Deukmejian has taken a hands-off approach to the base-closing issue, reluctant to favor one California community over another. The governors of Colorado and New Mexico, however, are aggressively campaigning for the space operations, as are business groups in Albuquerque and Colorado Springs.
“Everyone is competing hard for this,” said Albuquerque businessman Kenn Holzer, head of a panel that New Mexico Gov. Garrey E. Carruthers appointed in May to woo the Air Force space division. “It’s like a football game.”
The scramble started Jan. 29 when Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Air Force Secretary Donald Rice unveiled a broad cost-cutting blueprint affecting Air Force bases worldwide.
Five domestic bases were earmarked for possible closure: Bergstrom AFB in Texas, Eaker AFB in Arkansas, Myrtle Beach AFB in South Carolina and Los Angeles AFB at El Segundo Boulevard and Isis Avenue.
Air Force officials say high housing costs and a scarcity of land for expansion are the main reasons the El Segundo base is included on the list. In December, Rice will make final recommendations on the proposed closing, which would require approval by Congress.
At first, the Air Force did not look beyond California for alternative sites for its Space Systems Division. Its only candidate initially was Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc. Since then, the service has begun studying others: March AFB near Riverside, Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, and the Peterson and Falcon bases near Colorado Springs.
There has been little lobbying so far for Vandenberg, experts say. But business leaders in Riverside, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs have launched aggressive campaigns.
“This is our No. 1 priority this year,” said Wanda Reeves of Colorado Springs, a member of a state-appointed task force created to promote Colorado’s defense industry. “I think we have a very good shot.”
In the Inland Empire, the lobbying is being led by a coalition of business and civic organizations from Riverside and San Bernardino counties, called the Inland Empire Space Systems Division Relocation Group.
‘We’re going out to all the cities in the two-county area (to get) resolutions of support,” said Stephen Albright, chairman of the coalition.
The interest is not surprising. Plenty of business and brains come with the base, which is dominated by the Space Systems Division but also includes administrative offices, a motor pool, a medical clinic, a day-care center and other support services.
The Space Systems Division and the Aerospace Corp. oversee research as well as planning and procurement of military space hardware ranging from heavy-lift rockets to spy and navigational satellites to space-based weapons for the Strategic Defense Initiative.
In the process, the two organizations add significantly to the pool of engineering and scientific talent that underlies Los Angeles’ aerospace industry. The Aerospace Corp. alone employs about 600 doctorate-level scientists and engineers, according to company spokesperson Robin Friedheim.
The military space work also bolsters the local economy. The combined annual payroll at Los Angeles AFB--most of it for the Space Systems Division--and the Aerospace Corp. totals $314 million. Their combined spending for Los Angeles-area goods and services exceeds $360 million a year, with a local economic impact exceeding $1 billion annually, the Air Force says.
It’s a resource Los Angeles business groups are loath to lose. After months of inaction, they recently began planning a joint lobbying campaign through the 18-member South Bay Assn. of Chambers of Commerce and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
The first goal, they say, is to seek support from California’s congressional delegation. But they’ll be up against intense competition.
“We think (the space facilities) would give Colorado Springs another important element of the military space program, and that could mean valuable spin-offs,” said Thomas Schilling of Colorado Gov. Roy Romer’s business development office. “We could have additional private-sector aerospace business moving into the area.”
In the Inland Empire, business groups say such high-tech growth would provide good local jobs for a large number of residents currently commuting to the Los Angeles area.
Said Andrew Moore of the Inland Empire Economic Council, one of the business groups participating in the drive to move the space division to March AFB: “This kind of job creation comes once in a decade.”
Whether it materializes, however, hinges on the base-closing decision.
Air Force officials say it is by no means certain that the base will be liquidated. It could be left as is or stripped of only a portion of its space operations.
The key reasons for considering closure, they say, are the high cost of housing and land in the South Bay.
The Air Force recently built 170 single-family houses for officers near Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro, its main housing facility for military families. But that brings the total number of units to only 575. More than 1,300 of the base’s military personnel contend with the Los Angeles area’s inhospitable housing market.
The higher cost of living in Los Angeles not only costs the Air Force a great deal of money, officials say, it also repels talented civilian engineers and scientists who are sought for the Space Systems Division.
“If you’ve got a technician who can get a job at competitive pay in the Colorado Springs space command or move the family to Los Angeles, what do you think they are going to do?” said Capt. Jack Giese of the Air Force’s public affairs office in Washington.
Giese said another consideration is that the cost of land might make future expansion of the Space Systems Division too expensive.
“You always have to be looking into the future, and space (activity) is always going to be growing,” he said. “We have to have quality people and quality facilities.”
South Bay business leaders acknowledge such drawbacks but argue that, on balance, a move from El Segundo would be unwise.
They say the transfer could give frustrated private aerospace contractors one more reason to leave the region. It might also be more expensive than keeping the facilities in El Segundo, they add, pointing out that new ones would have to be built elsewhere.
That argument could carry weight if the Air Force is unable to use the money from the sale of its 100-acre El Segundo base and its 130-acre San Pedro holdings to offset the cost of new installations.
The Defense Department has said it will not close the base unless Congress passes a bill authorizing the Air Force to spend the proceeds from such a sale.
As they grapple with these issues, some local businessmen fault Deukmejian for failing to come to their aid.
“If these facilities leave, it would leave a cavity the size of the Grand Canyon in this area,” said Bob Marsella, president of the Hawthorne Chamber of Commerce. “And yet Sacramento is not saying anything. I don’t understand it. I’ve been very frustrated.”
Kenneth Gibson, director of the state Department of Commerce, said Deukmejian is strongly opposed to moving the two space facilities from California. But he said the governor has not fought to keep the Los Angeles air base open because it would appear that he was favoring one California community over another.
“The local communities are going to have to marshal their forces as best they can,” Gibson said.
That presents an opening to the out-of-state suitors, who are busily touting their wider availability of land, cheaper housing and less-congested environment, among other advantages.
Both Colorado and New Mexico have a track record of hosting military space facilities. Kirtland AFB has a space weaponry research center, and Colorado Springs is the headquarters for the Air Force’s space command and the military’s joint U.S. command.
Of the two, Colorado appears better positioned politically. Three members of its congressional delegation hold seats on their respective house’s armed services committees: Democratic Sen. Timothy E. Wirth, Republican Rep. Joel Hefley and Democratic Rep. Patricia Schroeder, who chairs the House’s military installations and facilities subcommittee.
Holzer declined to say whether New Mexico is offering the Air Force economic incentives to relocate its El Segundo space unit there. Reeves says Colorado will offer incentives, but she would not elaborate.
“We can’t say what they are until they are completely signed off on,” she said. “That would be letting it out of the bag.”
