Defense Closure Panel to Spare 2 State Bases : Military: Board decides to keep Defense Language Institute open and to block plans to move 6th Army from San Francisco.

Giving California two early victories Wednesday, the base closing commission decided to spare the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey and overrode a 5-year-old decision to move the 6th Army from its headquarters in San Francisco.

The official vote on the language school was deferred until today, but the commission made it clear that it agreed with Defense Secretary Les Aspin that shutting down the foreign language school could disrupt U.S. intelligence-gathering capabilities.

Shortly after moving to save the language school, the commission voted 7 to 0 to reject the Army’s plan to close the Presidio of San Francisco. Instead, it instructed the 6th Army to stay at the facility after negotiating a new lease with the Department of the Interior, which controls the land.

The actions came on the first of five days of hearings, during which the commission will develop a list of recommended closings and realignments to send to President Clinton. In hearings today and through the weekend, the panel will discuss other Air Force and Navy facilities in California that have been threatened with closure.

One of the bases targeted for closure by the Pentagon is the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and the commission’s staff seemingly ruled out one part of a plan advanced by Orange County Reps. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) to keep El Toro open.

Because the Pentagon plan envisioned moving the Marine aviation units at El Toro and Tustin to Miramar in San Diego County, any plan to keep El Toro open would have to find a home for Tustin’s helicopter units, since the commission decided two years ago to close Tustin.

Cox and Dornan had suggested moving Tustin’s helicopters to March Air Force Base in Riverside County, which is expected to have room for them when its active duty Air Force units are transferred elsewhere.

But the commission’s Air Force analyst, Rick DiCamillo, told the panel on Wednesday that combining the Marines with Air Force reserve units has a “rather high price tag.” Not only does March AFB lack sufficient maintenance facilities for the helicopters, but it also would require the Navy to assume ownership of the base, since the Air Force is removing March from its “active duty” base roster.

Nationwide, the commission is considering 238 bases for closure or realignment, 165 recommended by the Defense Department and 73 added by the commission. In California, 15 major military facilities are on the commission’s review list.

Despite the encouraging votes on the two Army bases, the commission almost certainly will vote to approve Pentagon recommendations for closing many facilities in the state.

In sparing the Presidio of Monterey, the commission rejected the Army’s plan to move the school to Ft. Huachuca in Arizona. A key element in the move was contracting out language training with the University of Arizona. Although it was estimated that the closure would save nearly $21 million a year after breaking even in 2018, commissioners felt the risks were too great.

“The Arizona facility could be a preeminent language center some day,” commission Chairman James Courter said. But he said he was afraid that language training would be disrupted in the interim.

The commission delayed the actual vote on the Presidio to formulate a precise motion that would specify which supporting activities would remain at the nearby Presidio Annex.

The commission also noted that shutting down the language school would have caused a 6.4% reduction in area jobs in 1993. Combined with the closure of nearby Ft. Ord in an earlier base-closing round, the cumulative job losses would have shot up to 27.2% of the region’s work force.

The Presidio of San Francisco was originally ordered closed in 1988, and the headquarters of the 6th Army were to be moved to Colorado. But the Pentagon revised that plan and was seeking to move the headquarters to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration research center in Mountain View.

According to Courter, the Interior Department had recently written to the commission supporting the retention of the Army command at its original Presidio location.

Earlier in the day, the commission voted 7 to 0 to reject the Pentagon recommendation to close Ft. McClellan in Alabama.

Courter said the Army’s plan to transfer its chemical warfare school from Ft. McClellan to Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.--but keep the decontamination training facility at Ft. McClellan--would be “the worst of all worlds” for the northeast Alabama community that supports the base.

He said the community not only would lose jobs but end up with a stock of chemical weapons that complicate reuse of the property.

Commissioners also said they were worried that the Pentagon’s proposal would affect the quality of chemical warfare training that troops would receive.

Todays, the commission will discuss the fate of March Air Force Base, along with some smaller maintenance facilities in Barstow and Seal Beach. On Friday, the panel is expected to vote on McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, the Long Beach and Mare Island naval shipyards and the Treasure Island and Alameda naval bases in the Bay Area.

Times staff writer Gebe Martinez contributed to this story.