Panel Maps Out Strategy to Keep Air Force Space Unit in El Segundo

Faced with an ailing aerospace industry, state lawmakers on Wednesday enlisted in a drive to keep the Air Force Space Systems Division in El Segundo from moving an estimated 7,200 jobs out of state and removing at least $1 billion from the local economy.

The Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee signaled its support by approving--10 to 0--legislation that would allow cities to divert $30 million earmarked for low- and moderate-income housing to acquire land and build up to 300 housing units for Air Force families. The measure would allow cities in the South Bay to develop reasonably priced housing for Air Force personnel stationed at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, where the Space Systems Division is located.

“The loss of the base will devastate our already battered Southern California economy,” declared Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), who is carrying the measure on behalf of the cities of El Segundo and Hawthorne. Tucker’s bill now goes to the Ways and Means Committee.

Legislators said they were compelled to act because of a growing list of grim statistics about the Southern California economy.

Los Angeles County’s Aerospace Task Force last week predicted that the end of the Cold War could result in the loss of between 184,000 and 368,000 jobs in the county by 1995. The report also found that Los Angeles County received defense contract funds of $8.88 billion in 1990, a figure that will drop to between $3.5 billion and $4.9 billion by 1995.

Even more jobs would be lost if the Air Force base is closed.

Two years ago, the Air Force disclosed that it was studying a plan to relocate the space unit, which oversees military contracts for procurement of space hardware, largely due to a lack of affordable housing in the Los Angeles area for enlisted personnel. So far, however, the base had been kept open.

Supporters of the Tucker bill say the threat remains that decreased military budgets will force the shutdown of the base and the move of the Space Systems Division to another site, possibly in Albuquerque, N.M., or Colorado Springs, Colo., where housing is much less expensive.

“We have been telling the folks in the area and the state of California that the cost of housing is a key issue for our people’s quality of life,” said Lt. Col Barry Glickman, director of public affairs for the Space Division.

Currently, all 570 of the Air Force’s housing units are in San Pedro, which Glickman said remains the first choice for new dwellings. Gov. Pete Wilson has pledged to turn over a small piece of California National Guard property in San Pedro, where an additional 37 units could be built. But that would still leave the Air Force about 200 units short of its goal.

With that in mind, Tucker’s measure would allow local redevelopment agencies to entice the Air Force to remain in El Segundo by banding together and using funds for low- and moderate-income housing for military housing outside their city borders. Sponsors of the bill said the funds could be used to buy a 20-acre parcel owned by TRW at Rosecrans Avenue and Aviation Boulevard in Hawthorne, about a mile from the Space Systems Division.

But housing advocates complained that limited housing funds should not be used to assist the Air Force.

Marcus Brown, representing the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, blasted the plan, saying that after a decade in which funds for public housing have been drastically reduced “it’s ironic that what we have here is a bribe from the state of California to the United States military using low-income housing funds as the bait.”