County Hires D.C. Lobbyists to Protect Bases

Assembling a defensive team to protect local Navy bases, county supervisors on Tuesday hired a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to plot strategies against potential closure of the bases at Point Mugu or Port Hueneme.

The supervisors unanimously approved the $15,000-a-month contract with the lobbying firm that includes a former California congressman and an attorney with extensive experience in base closures.

“I think this is a good contract,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn. “It is certainly not an inexpensive contract. But the stakes are monumental.”

County leaders agreed to administer the contract for a local task force of defense contractors, business leaders and public officials who are concerned about the financial impact of losing the bases, along with their 20,000 jobs and $1.5 billion they pump into the county’s economy.

The task force has raised $190,000 so far from local governments and businesses to pay for lobbyists and rally the community to support the local bases.

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The Pentagon has begun to work on a fourth round of base closures ordered by Congress to save tax dollars by scaling back the military after the end of the Cold War.

Secretary of Defense William J. Perry has instructed various branches of the military to recommend closing about 15% of the nation’s bases in this round. In March, they will release a hit list of bases to an independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission appointed by the President.

Although the commission is designed to be insulated from lobbying efforts, communities around the nation are spending top dollar for top-notch lobbyists to help them collect data and mount a defense should their local base end up on the closure list.

The county’s BRAC ’95 Task Force settled on the firm Copeland, Hatfield, Lowery & Jacquez after reviewing the resumes of a number of firms, including an early favorite that had mixed reviews from past clients.

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“This is the best of all of the ones that we’ve looked at,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said about the firm. She said the county’s usual Washington lobbyist, Roger Honberger, said the firm comes well-recommended.

One of the partners, former Rep. Bill Lowery, (R-San Diego), is highly regarded in Congress and in the Pentagon. He decided not to run for reelection in 1992, after he had written 300 overdrafts on the scandal-ridden House bank.

During his 12 years in office, Lowery rose to a position as the ranking Republican member of the House appropriations subcommittee on military construction. The subcommittee controls of the purse strings of military construction projects and has oversight of the base-closure process.

Lynn Jacquez, another partner in the firm, will do most of the leg work, collecting and analyzing data to help local officials prepare a defense if needed. She has already spent two days collecting documents from previous rounds of base closures and met with various officials from the county.

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“She knows the process,” said Cal Carerra, co-chairman of the task force. “She’ll be the principal investigator for us.”

Jacquez has represented Alameda County, Merced County and Rock Island, Ill., during previous rounds of base closures in 1991 and 1993.

“She did a fantastic job in shepherding our efforts,” said Mark Friedman, chief of staff to Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata. “She is extremely thorough and very persistent in fighting against closure.”

In the end, the commission decided to close the Alameda Naval Air Station, the Naval Aviation Depot and Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. But Friedman said it is not a poor reflection on her work, given that she helped save the facilities in the 1991 round. They were closed in 1993 for factors beyond anyone’s control, he said.

Jacquez has continued to work with Alameda County, helping line up federal money to help convert the military installations to civilian use.

“She has done an excellent job,” said Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, who is vice chairman of his county’s base conversion commission. “She has kept us well-informed on the things that we could take advantage of.”

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Jacquez, an attorney, said the firm’s strategy will be to prepare a defense based on a worst-case scenario, just like preparing for trial. She plans to collect all necessary data on the local bases and their potential competitors and then run the same computer programs that military officials use.

“We need to be able to prove empirically the military value of the bases and the negative impact on military readiness that closure would have,” she said.

Carolyn Leavens, head of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., said she was impressed with the firm and Jacquez, whom she met on a recent trip to the nation’s capital.

“They have a wealth of experience in his area,” Leavens said. She said she was also pleased to have the county represented by a firm with Democratic and Republican partners with contacts in Congress, the Pentagon and the Clinton Administration.

“They are well-positioned to help us pry open doors wherever we need to,” Leavens said.