L.A. Scrambles to Guard Air Force Base : Defense: The facility houses a prized research unit. Other communities are eager to be its new home.
Apart from the guards at the gate, the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo resembles a corporate headquarters more than a military installation--no whirling radar dishes, no thundering jets. The facility’s main feature: a six-story office complex.
What the base lacks in Top Gun appeal, though, it more than makes up in scientific and engineering prowess. Housed inside is the 3,200-employee Space Systems Division, a highly prized Air Force research and development arm that oversees procurement of much of the military’s space hardware.
That explains why Los Angeles-area business and political leaders are scrambling to block a proposal to close the base and relocate the space division, possibly to Colorado or New Mexico.
Three communities--Riverside, Colorado Springs and Albuquerque, N.M.--have mounted vigorous campaigns to land the unit.
The proposal, among tentative cost-reduction moves announced by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney earlier this year, also contemplates relocation of the Aerospace Corp., a 4,000-employee research and development center in El Segundo that works closely with the Space Systems Division.
The proposal comes as some local aerospace firms, hit by defense cuts, are shifting operations to less-costly communities. This has raised fears that the Air Force’s departure would accelerate the trend.
It has also galvanized local business leaders who believe the Los Angeles area should do more to protect its high-tech industries--assets, they say, it has foolishly taken for granted.
“It’s a new ballgame,” said James Miscoll, vice chairman of Bank of America and chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “We have to be willing to cut some deals to keep these people here. We can’t keep saying we don’t have to make deals because in California the sun shines every day.”
Los Angeles Air Force Base is among seven domestic air bases the Pentagon is studying for closure to help trim the defense budget. The others: Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas, Eaker Air Force Base in Arkansas, Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in South Carolina, England Air Force Base in Louisiana, Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Michigan and Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Cheney and Air Force Secretary Donald Rice are expected to make final recommendations on all seven bases in December. Options include moving only part of the space division. A decision to close Los Angeles Air Force Base outright would require the approval of Congress.
The Air Force cites several reasons for targeting the El Segundo facility. Among them are high costs of local services and a scarcity of land for expansion of the space division, which is expected to experience long-term growth.
The problem the Air Force mentions most often is that high housing costs in the Los Angeles area, coupled with an inadequate federal pay scale, makes life difficult for the division’s work force.
Though the base has 574 housing units in San Pedro for uniformed personnel, more than 1,000 of its military employees and all 1,450 of its civilians must find living quarters in the Los Angeles area’s high-priced housing market.
As a result, the department says, the space division has trouble hiring and retaining qualified civilian personnel, and some employees--both military and civilian--commute from distant, lower-cost communities to make ends meet. An Air Force captain with eight years’ experience must support a family on $3,468 a month in Los Angeles. A middle-level civilian aerospace engineer with eight years’ experience receives a monthly salary of $3,031, the Air Force said.
“These factors detract from the goal of producing a professional management team for future space systems development,” the Air Force said in a draft economic impact statement released in July.
Such talk frightens local supporters of the Space Systems Division, which oversees procurement of military hardware ranging from heavy-lift rockets to spy and navigational satellites.
According to the Air Force, closing the base would cost the local economy $1.25 billion a year and mean a loss of 17,000 direct and related jobs.
The two space units are also valued for stimulating high-tech research in the local aerospace industry and area universities.
Frank Wazzan, dean of UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, said his graduate students and faculty have access to experts and laboratories at the Aerospace Corp., bolstering their work in areas such as communications, laser technology and high speed electronics.
Wazzan said scientists and engineers at the Space Systems Division and the Aerospace Corp. routinely conduct brainstorming sessions involving local aerospace companies and universities.
“Literally, I can hang up the phone and in an hour be down there,” he said. “I would not be able to do that if they are in Colorado or in New Mexico. It would be even worse for a student.”
“They are a fantastic catalyst,” he added. “To dismantle that, my God, why? . . . It would damn near be a catastrophe.”
Sam Iacobellis, chief operating officer of Rockwell International Corp., said the proximity of the Space Systems Division gives an advantage to Los Angeles defense contractors.
He notes that a $1.3-billion program under which Rockwell is building 28 global positioning satellites for the Defense Department has often required daily contact with space systems personnel overseeing the project.
Losing that next-door relationship, Iacobellis said, would give aerospace companies one less reason to concentrate their resources in the Los Angeles area.
The proposed relocation “could be the beginning of the unraveling of the nucleus of the aerospace industry we have in the Los Angeles Basin,” he said.
While spreading such warnings, area business and political leaders have launched an aggressive drive to dissuade the Air Force from moving.
The enlistees include the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, South Bay chambers and city governments, a bipartisan coalition of 17 area congressmen and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Their chief argument is that the tentative plan to close the base, far from being economical, would waste tax money. Instead of a conventional base-closing, they point out, the plan involves the relocation of large and highly complex operations.
The Air Force declines to say how much such a relocation would cost, but opponents of the move assert that the price would approach $1 billion. They question whether economic pressures affecting the base come close to justifying such an expenditure.
Col. Edwin Peura, third in command of the Space Systems Division, says that it may not be cost-effective to relocate both the space division and the Aerospace Corp.
“There are no economic advantages to the government to move a work force of 7,000 people,” he said. But Peura agreed that a move might mean better off-base housing, easier commutes and other improvements for employees.
Lifestyle will be a factor in the department’s final decision, according to Col. Peter Bogy, the Air Force representative in recent community hearings.
“Certainly, not to be slighted is the quality of life of our military and civilian employees,” Bogy said.
Bogy also said that the division will not be moved unless Congress passes legislation allowing the Air Force to use proceeds from the sale of its El Segundo and San Pedro property to help cover relocation costs. Currently, income from the sale of military property is used to purchase land for parks or wildlife refuges, or for general government purposes.
Local supporters of the base have promised to help resolve what the Air Force calls the base’s most pressing need--250 more military housing units.
The cities of El Segundo, Hawthorne and Los Angeles all said they are looking for government or other land for such living quarters. Hawthorne said it may use redevelopment money to build a military housing complex on one of several sites, among them surplus school property and a large plant nursery that is for sale.
Gov. George Deukmejian’s office, at the urging of Los Angeles chamber officials and aerospace executives, is studying how state housing programs could help finance construction.
“These are very highly skilled employees who represent much of what our Los Angeles economy is all about,” said Kenneth Gibson, director of the state Department of Commerce. “You’re talking about losing a critical mass here which could be extremely damaging to the economy.”
And extremely helpful to the community that might land the Space Systems Division.
The Air Force is considering several sites: Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, March Air Force Base near Riverside, Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, and the Peterson and Falcon bases near Colorado Springs.
Officials said the strongest lobbying is coming from the Inland Empire, Colorado and New Mexico. In each of those areas, boosters say the Space Systems Division represents the “clean” high-tech growth they are trying to foster.
“When an economic development group has the chance to attract this many jobs that are clean industry, our eyes light up,” said Stephen Albright, chairman of an Inland Empire business coalition seeking the space unit and a member of the Southern California Air Quality Management District governing board.
Kenn Holzer, head of a state-appointed panel working to lure the space division to New Mexico, said, “This would put the state of New Mexico on the map as far as our high-tech capabilities are concerned.”
The suitors have sweeteners. Colorado Springs is offering 200 acres of free land outside Peterson Air Force Base. The state may provide low-cost loans for construction of space division facilities, according to Wanda Reeves, member of a state task force promoting Colorado’s defense industry.
Holzer said the New Mexico task force has low-cost private financing in place to assist the Aerospace Corp. in building facilities. The group is also considering a plan to offer special home financing for employees moving east.
In Riverside County, Albright said, several cities with redevelopment work planned near March Air Force Base are willing to use those projects to build support facilities for the space division.
In all three areas, officials are saying that their housing costs, availability of land, and lifestyle for military and civilian families would be a big improvement over Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles area business leaders said they are determined to meet the challenge.
“In the past, we’ve opened the door and aerospace growth has just fallen in,” said John Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “Now we’re going to have to fight for what we’ve got.”
NEXT STEP
Defense officials are scheduled to decide the fate of Los Angeles Air Force Base in December. Closure of the facility and relocation of the space systems division would require congressional approval. U.S. Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) expects lobbying over the issue to become intense in Washington. “I think we have a serious fight on our hands,” he said.
