Panel Votes to Close El Toro; San Diego Gains

A federal commission Saturday added El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Alameda Naval Aviation Depot and San Diego Naval Training Center to a growing list of California military bases being sacrificed to dwindling Pentagon budgets.

The closure of the Alameda depot is the fourth Bay Area facility to be shut down in two days, eliminating a total of 21,600 military and civilian jobs. Other installations in the hard-hit region are expected to be ordered closed during the panel’s final hearing today.

By contrast, San Diego will emerge from the base closure process with more military jobs than before. Even with the training center closure, San Diego nets 15,000 new military jobs, elected officials said. The potential loss of 5,500 jobs at the Naval Training Center would be offset by new jobs at Miramar, North Island, Camp Pendleton--and in 10,000 new slots aboard nuclear carriers to be moved from Alameda to San Diego.

All three facilities slated for closure appeared on the Pentagon’s original list of doomed bases issued in March. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission’s vote came despite intense lobbying campaigns by communities and elected officials.

Those efforts have been largely unsuccessful as the commission finds its hands tied because there are too many bases and too little federal money to keep them open.

Asked about the California closures, Commission Chairman James Courter called it “one of the great ironies” that “those who sacrificed so much in the Cold War are called upon to sacrifice again. What they’re doing is not essential to national security today.”

“I ask them to understand, to stand in our shoes,” Courter said. “There is life after base closure.”

The commission’s recommendations must be sent to President Clinton by Thursday. If he approves the list, it will go to Congress, which must accept or reject it without any changes.

In closing the El Toro base, the commission dismissed a welter of last-minute confusing alternatives, and went along with a Pentagon plan to move its 8,350 military and civilian jobs to the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

“I have always thought of Orange County as Marine Corps country, Semper Fi-land, and this really hurts,” said Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said he intends to plead with the President to spare El Toro.

“We certainly did everything possible (to save El Toro), and we have to feel good about the community effort on behalf of our Marines,” said Cox, who led the fight to keep the base open, primarily by arguing that the Pentagon had underestimated the moving costs by $700 million to $1 billion.

Unlike the closures in the Bay Area, which will hit the region hard with job losses, many of the El Toro Marines will be able to relocate in Southern California. The action sets in motion a complicated reshuffling of Marines and aircraft among several Pacific and California bases.

Under the plan, 48 Marine jets and helicopters from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, will move to Miramar, along with the 137 aircraft from El Toro. Some helicopters based in Hawaii will be sent to Camp Pendleton.

To make room for the Marines at Miramar, the Navy’s F/A-14 jets will move to the Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno. The Navy’s “Top Gun” premier jet fighter school will move to Fallon Naval Air Station near Reno, Nev. Overall, Miramar will end up with slightly more aircraft.

As with the El Toro decision, the commission’s vote to close the Alameda Aviation Depot, which repairs aircraft and components, came at the behest of the Pentagon. Faced with 115% more repair capacity than it needs, the Navy wanted to close three of its six depots nationwide--Alameda, Norfolk, Va., and Pensacola, Fla.

The commission voted 6 to 0 to close the Navy training centers at San Diego and Orlando, Fla., and retain the Great Lakes Naval Center in Illinois, all as recommended by the Pentagon.

The San Diego center, opened in 1928, was the smallest at 541 acres and had the highest percentage of buildings considered substandard.

San Diego Deputy Mayor Tom Behr said it was a tremendous disappointment that the San Diego training center, with its 5,500 employees and $79.6-million annual payroll, has been slated for closure.

“I was afraid they (commission members) were saving the worst for last,” Behr said. “Maybe we concentrated too much on Miramar. We’ve got two steps left: the President and the Congress. Maybe something can happen.”

Although the commission also discussed the possibility of closing the Naval Aviation Depot at Coronado’s North Island, it was spared Saturday. The North Island depot employs 3,800 workers--with an annual payroll of $178 million--performing repairs on supersonic aircraft.

Commissioner Harry McPherson Jr., indicated that he might have preferred to also close North Island except for the Navy’s insistence that one depot be left on the West Coast.

“The Navy has trumped my card by saying it needs a depot on the West Coast,” McPherson said. The other depots left open by the commission are Jacksonville, Fla., and Cherry Point, N.C.

San Diego-area congressmen trumpeted the survival of the aviation depot at North Island as proof of San Diego’s status in the post-Cold War era as a “megaport.” Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-San Diego) and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) noted that the depot may gain up to 1,900 jobs because of transfers from other closed bases.

“They have state-of-the-art equipment,” Hunter said of the North Island depot employees, “and they are dedicated workers who care about the quality of their work.”

In other actions, the commission voted to close two of the Navy’s jet fighter bases, Cecil Naval Air Station near Jacksonville, and Barbers Point Naval Air Station in Hawaii.

In one of the commission’s more pointed actions, it voted to close a naval airfield on the Pacific island of Guam because residents want to develop the land. But the Navy has not offered it for closure.

The commission also voted to close the Glenview, Ill., Dallas and Detroit naval reserve air stations, but spared the reserve air station at South Weymouth, Mass., which the Pentagon wanted to close. It stopped construction of Navy Reserve air stations at Martinsburg, W.Va., and Johnstown, Pa. Commissioners said there was no justification for the facilities when others were being closed and cut back.

Times staff writers Tony Perry and Gebe Martinez contributed to this story.