Wilson Wants Local Use of Closed Bases : Economy: State task force will lobby Washington to cooperate in plan for quick conversion of the land.

In an effort to hold the federal government’s feet to the fire, Gov. Pete Wilson announced Monday that a state task force will try to pressure Washington into returning closed military bases to local governments to spur private economic development.

The Clinton Administration has said it will expedite the return of such bases to civilian uses where possible. But Wilson appeared dubious that the federal government, unless goaded, will move quickly enough to ease the economic pain California is bound to suffer due to base closures.

“The normal foot-dragging simply can’t be tolerated,” Wilson said. He added that the federal government owes it to California to cleanse the closed bases of toxic wastes and then return them to local hands for private economic ventures.

“They have closed bases, they have taken away military and civilian payrolls. That tears quite a hole into a local economy,” Wilson said. “Unless they have a promise of a near-term substitute federal activity that is going to provide the same kind employment, then it seems to me they are obliged to cooperate and cooperate fully” in releasing the property.

Of 35 major bases slated for closure under the list approved by President Clinton, seven are in California: the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Navy air station and repair depot in Alameda, the Navy hospital in Alameda, the shipyard at Vallejo, a Navy station at Treasure Island, and the Naval Training Center in San Diego. Officials have estimated a loss of 28,425 jobs because of the closures.

Wilson turned the job of running the California Military Base Reuse Task Force to a longtime political friend, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, who began her political career in 1981 as a Wilson protege appointed to the City Council.

Golding said the task force will conduct hearings throughout California to air problems being experienced by local communities in converting the bases to job-producing uses. The first hearing will be July 30 in Sacramento.

Still, the task is daunting because federal law requires that excess federal property be offered first for use by other federal agencies. Wilson said the laws should either be changed or somehow put in abeyance.

“We intend to pressure them to do so,” Wilson said.

At least one thing that Wilson suggested is already being done. Wilson told a news conference at San Diego City Hall that the military should appoint someone to coordinate the return of military sites to local hands.

But the Department of Defense has already gone one better and named someone at each of the 35 major bases to work with local leaders to assess their needs and wishes. The 35 transition coordinators were summoned to the Pentagon last week for a briefing on the legal complexities of the closure process.

For example, the law provides that if a closed base is not needed by another branch of military or another part of the federal government, it must then be offered to American Indian tribes and to groups offering shelter for the homeless.

Homeless activists have already gotten tentative approval for 64 housing units at George Air Force Base, and American Indian groups are looking at property at Norton Air Force Base. Both bases were on previous closure lists.

The final decision on who assumes control of the surplus property remains with the Pentagon, although choosing between competing claims could be difficult.

“There is very little history on how this is supposed to work,” said Navy Capt. Robert Kiesling, a base realignment and closure officer in San Diego. “We haven’t done it on this scale before. Nobody is an expert.”

Wilson said he would prefer to see the sites used for private ventures, not for government offices. In San Diego, for example, there have been suggestions that the Naval Training Center be used for hotels, housing or shopping malls or an expansion of Lindbergh Field.

“We can’t let them become desolate wastelands surrounded by barbed-wire fences, no man’s lands of wasted potential,” Wilson said of the bases to be closed.

Several hours after announcing Golding’s appointment as chairwoman, Wilson’s office announced the other members of the task force: San Bernardino County Supervisor Jerry Eaves, Carmel banker and winery owner Charles Chrietzberg Jr., San Francisco economist Patrick F. Mason, Los Angeles environmental lawyer Malissa Hathaway McKeith, Sacramento attorney Randall Anthony Yim, San Francisco Bay Area real estate developer Jon Reynolds and Santa Monica real estate developer Robert James Lowe.