Naval Base Jobs Unaffected by Cutbacks : Military: A Port Hueneme laboratory is to be merged with Seabee operations, but any lost positions will likely be moved elsewhere.

While California was hit hard by a new military base closure plan announced Friday, Ventura County escaped almost unscathed even though the U. S. Navy is the area’s largest employer.

Because the plan has so little impact on local jobs, its most significant effect may be to put 33 Navy-owned acres up for sale to the city of Port Hueneme or the deep-water Port of Hueneme.

At most, the Navy’s four local facilities would lose 144 of their 21,000 jobs. But 129 Navy jobs are expected to be transferred into the county, so the net job loss would be only 15, according to Pentagon projections.

“Needless to say, I am extremely pleased that the importance of Point Mugu and Port Hueneme (bases) has once again been recognized,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly, a Republican from Simi Valley.

This third round of nationwide base closures and realignments would be felt most at the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory in Port Hueneme.

The 33-acre facility at the mouth of the Port Hueneme Harbor would be closed, and its operations moved just north onto the sprawling Naval Construction Battalion Center.

Pentagon documents say 65 jobs would be cut by consolidating the 416-employee Navy laboratory with Seabee base operations. But Capt. Joseph Penell, who commands the laboratory, said Friday’s announcement was relatively good news.

“If the alternative is closure, I feel good about this,” he said.

Many of those 65 lost jobs, however, are expected to be reassigned elsewhere on the Seabee base as attrition allows, said a government source familiar with the process.

The new plan also includes cuts of two data-processing units at 11,000-employee Point Mugu Naval Air Station and the 7,200-employee Port Hueneme Seabee base. Job losses total 79. But another 129 jobs would come to the Seabee facility under the plan.

The 2,350-employee Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme, which keeps the Navy’s most sophisticated weaponry prepared for war, would be affected only at its two Virginia satellite facilities, a spokeswoman said.

The most significant result of the new plan to the local economy could be to offer the oceanfront Navy laboratory site to the city of Port Hueneme or the Port of Hueneme as excess property.

Penell said he thinks that the property will be made available to local government, and Gallegly said the Navy plans to sell the land.

“This is really a neat opportunity that comes at a very opportune time,” said Tom Figg, community development director for the city of Port Hueneme.

The city already has an interest in developing 11 1/2 oceanfront acres adjacent to the Navy laboratory into luxury condominiums, a small hotel, restaurants and shops.

Figg said construction on the Navy property could be a logical extension of that effort.

“I think the community would like to see something that would draw tourists and help the city (financially),” Figg said.

Although the city is strapped for money, bond revenues could be redirected and redevelopment funds might help pay for the Navy’s land, he said.

Figg said he foresees no competition from harbor officials for the property because of a 10-year-old agreement where the city gained first right to excess Navy land on the coast and the harbor got first claim on such land inland.

Anthony Taormina, director of the port for eight years, said he’d never heard of such an agreement. But he said the port would cooperate with the city if the Navy property becomes available.

“The question will be, how do we create jobs (on the property),” he said. “We’ll work together to do it.”

The latest round of 31 base closures nationwide is not expected to be considered by Congress and President Clinton until summer.

But the Friday announcements sent shock waves through 25 California cities where bases will be closed or scaled back at a cost of 60,000 civilian and military jobs.

Ventura County is fortunate because its facilities are necessary and nearly unique.

The Port Hueneme Seabee base is one of only two construction battalions in the nation and serves all of the Pacific Fleet. The Point Mugu air station is a key base in a triangle of facilities that test missiles over 25,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

And the naval warfare center dispatches engineers and technicians throughout the globe to ferret out computer glitches and malfunctions of shipboard guns, radar, missile-guidance controls and launchers.

Even during previous budget cuts, Ventura County Navy facilities have fared well, losing few employees.

Last year, Point Mugu transferred a squadron of fighter jets to the Lemoore Naval Air Station south of Fresno, but the move was not related to retrenchment efforts, officials said.

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