Task Force Accelerates Drive to Keep Base Open : Point Mugu: Group mounts major lobbying effort. Navy downplays report that Eglin Air Force Base is main competition.

Fearing the loss of the Ventura County’s largest Navy base and its $1-billion contribution to the economy, business and civic leaders have stepped up a major lobbying effort aimed at saving the base from closure.

In recent weeks, members of the Ventura County BRAC ’95 Task Force have stated that the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station could be closed given a race between the Navy base and giant Eglin Air Force Base, near Pensacola, Fla.

But Navy officials this week downplayed the notion that Point Mugu is in direct competition with just the sprawling Florida facility. They said instead that they are in competition with as many as 20 other military test and evaluation facilities scattered across the nation operated by the Air Force, Navy and Army.

“I appreciate their concern and I understand their anxiety, but it’s unfortunate they are getting so spun-up over this (issue),” said Rear Adm. Dana B. McKinney, commander at Point Mugu and its sister base at China Lake. “The belief that it’s either Eglin or Point Mugu is something that cannot be supported by any data that we know.”

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While Point Mugu is smaller than the Florida facility, its 36,000-square-mile sea test range is considered unique because of its extensive radar tracking systems and other instruments that can monitor any type of weapon system.

Point Mugu’s ability to use its missile launching and tracking facility at San Nicolas Island also adds to its ability to fully test and evaluate weapons systems, Navy officials say.

Officials say that while Eglin’s sea test range is physically larger, at 86,500-square miles, its ocean range is limited to the testing of certain weapons because of the heavy commercial airline traffic and the base’s proximity to Cuba.

Defense Department officials also point out that Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Md., would also come under scrutiny during any review for redundant functions. The Patuxent River Navy base operates its own 51,000-square-mile sea test range at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay. It too is used for aircraft and weapons testing.

On Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed joining Point Mugu with seven other military weapons testing sites and placing them under one centralized Western command. Her safety-in-numbers proposal, she said, “would help prevent future base closures in California and expand operations at the Southwest bases, thus creating new jobs.”

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Leaders of the BRAC ’95 Task Force acknowledge that comparisons between Eglin and Point Mugu may help area residents understand the facilities are vulnerable to closure. But they deny they are attempting to instigate a fight between the two military communities.

“The notion that we are in a battle with Eglin is something the press has grabbed ahold of for their own purposes,” said Cal Carrera, chairman of the BRAC ’95 Task Force. “Our goals are to show the military value of the two bases in Ventura County.”

To be sure, Carrera said that he and leaders of the task force believe that Eglin is Point Mugu’s main competitor but do not discount threats presented by the Patuxent River facility and other military test and evaluation facilities.

Carrera added that the task force is also concerned about the possible closure of the Construction Battalion Center in Port Hueneme--the West Coast home of the Navy’s Seabees.

“With Point Mugu, there are some very identifiable threats, like Eglin,” Carrera said. “The threats to Port Hueneme, on the other hand, are harder to identify because of the scope of the work it does and because there are so many tenant commands there.”

Navy officials say that Port Hueneme is the only major Seabee base on the West Coast and is used to serve the entire Pacific Fleet. Its counterpart base is located in Gulf Port, Miss. Capt. James Delker, Port Hueneme’s commanding officer, could not be reached for comment.

Carrera said the task force, a group sponsored by the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. and the Defense Services Industry Executive Assn., has been offering a series of public presentations on the base closure process and the possible closure of Port Hueneme or Point Mugu. He said the group, formally organized June 29, has already briefed the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and the members of several city councils.

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Although the task force has markedly stepped up its public briefings, Carrera said that the goal is not to stir a panic within the county.

“The task force is composed of a lot of engineers,” Carrera said. “We’re largely incapable of being hysterical. The last thing we want to do is to create hysteria. What we do want to do is to educate them about the realities of the base closure process.”

Part of that effort will be to raise $350,000 to pay for the services of a Washington firm to do lobbying and statistical analysis on behalf of the bases. So far, the group has raised about $10,000 in donations but is expecting more soon, Carrera said.

Larry Taub, a lobbyist for Thicksten, Grimm and Burgum in Washington--the firm that is currently negotiating with the task force--said that in anticipation of a contract, members of his staff are already researching the bases and assembling a defense for them if needed.

Taub would not reveal his lobbying strategy but did say the best defense is making sure that a military base never gets on the Defense Department list transmitted to the base closure commission. He said those facilities on the list have a 90% chance of being shut down later by the commission.

“The clock is ticking with the base closure process,” Taub said. “I have my staff starting to do some research--looking at the bases’ vulnerabilities and their assets.”

Steve Mendonca, Point Mugu’s deputy program manager for base realignment and closure, said for the first time officials are looking across the services to weed out redundancies. Weapons testing and evaluation is one of six areas that will be closely examined, he said.

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Point Mugu officials said that the first phase of the base closure process had already been completed when they forwarded the secretary of the Navy more than 3,000 pages of documents in what is known as a “data call.” The documents--a stack measuring 3 feet high--detail virtually all of Point Mugu’s operations and are used by Defense Department officials and the commission to make their decisions. Virtually all U.S. military installations had to answer the “data call.”

The members of the base closure commission will be appointed by President Clinton in January and the Defense Department will hand the commission its recommended list for closure in March.

Then, the commission will hold a series of public hearings and make its final determination in July. At that point, Clinton has 15 days to sign the list or reject it in whole.

And Congress has 45 days to muster the votes to reject the entire list of bases to be closed, but cannot pick and chose among various bases. If the deadline passes, the closure list automatically becomes law.