Local Group Will Take Base Closure Fight to D. C. : Defense: Delegation will stress the military value of Point Mugu and Port Hueneme during three-day lobbying blitz.

In a preemptive strike to protect Ventura County’s military bases, a 10-member delegation of local officials jets off to the nation’s capital this week to demonstrate widespread community support for high-tech weapons tests and other Navy programs.

The three-day lobbying blitz of White House, Pentagon and congressional officials is designed as an early show of force in the upcoming battle over the planned closure of 15% of the nation’s military bases.

A countywide task force of public officials, defense contractors and retired military leaders has spent months honing its message, which will stress the military value of preserving the bases at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme.

The delegation plans to play down the enormous financial stakes that have brought the group together: The Navy pours $1.5 billion a year into the bases and employs about 20,000 people.

“We have to appeal to them on military value and show them why the installations need to stay open,” said county Supervisor John K. Flynn, who is leading the delegation with Supervisor Maggie Kildee. “They know there will be an economic impact anywhere they cut bases.”

Although it is still early in the base-closure process, Navy and Pentagon officials are scrutinizing which bases will be offered for sacrifice to an independent base-closing commission in March.

Local Navy officials have scurried about in recent weeks, answering questions from naval headquarters on the costs of pursuing various scenarios that could either bring more business and employees to the bases or gut them by shipping their programs elsewhere.

Judging by the questions asked, the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, appears far more vulnerable to cuts than the nearby base at Port Hueneme.

The delegation has tailored its presentation to Pentagon and White House officials to try to make sure Point Mugu remains open and retains its programs to test missiles fired from aircraft.

Many military strategists agree that the Army, Air Force and Navy spend too much money supporting bases that test and evaluate high-tech weaponry. For that reason, these bases have emerged as prime targets for consolidation in the push to scale back the military after the end of the cold war.

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Defense Secretary William Perry has set up a special cross-service task force to figure out ways to merge bases from various branches of the military.

The Navy’s early questions to Point Mugu indicated a desire to retain and slightly expand the base, which the service ranked as second highest in military value. But naval leaders more recently began preparing facts and figures for inter-service scenarios that could be ordered by Perry.

One of them includes moving Point Mugu’s weapons-testing responsibilities to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, according to Navy sources.

Another would move testing of jet fighters and other aircraft from the Navy base at Patuxent River, Md., to Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Such a move would greatly increase the work load at Point Mugu, because Navy aircraft need to be tested over the ocean and would have to make extensive use of Point Mugu’s 36,000-square-mile sea test range.

In similar preparations, officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc have been figuring out how to run Point Mugu sea test range should Point Mugu be forced to shut down.

“With telecommunications being what they are today, we could move the functions of Point Mugu to Vandenberg and operate the range,” said Daniel Wenker, chief of plans at Vandenberg. “We are not proposing that. We support keeping Point Mugu open and independent, and continuing to provide mutual aid to each other.”

Navy officials said many of the most dramatic scenarios do not make sense because of the exorbitant moving costs. They stress that no decisions have been made and that there is no cause for panic because defense leaders have long warned they would look at a wide range of bases for closure and expansion.

Yet the county’s BRAC ’95 Task Force, set up to defend the bases, is preparing to do everything it can to bolster the case for retaining Point Mugu.

“I think Point Mugu is still vulnerable. Very vulnerable,” said Bob Conroy, a former Navy fighter pilot and defense contractor in Camarillo who will join the task force’s delegation to Washington as a technical expert. “I’m getting the sense that Port Hueneme is a little more secure.”

Indeed, the Navy has indicated that it needs to retain all eight Naval Mobile Construction Battalions and that it makes sense to continue to split the Seabee forces between the Port Hueneme base on the Pacific Coast and the Gulfport, Miss., base on the Gulf of Mexico.

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Furthermore, the Port Hueneme division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center is a candidate for expansion, under Navy scenarios. The center, which serves as trouble-shooter for computer glitches and other malfunctions of shipboard weaponry, is the largest tenant on the Seabee base, with about 2,500 employees.

The delegation bound for Washington has meetings planned for most of Wednesday with various Navy admirals and military leaders in the Pentagon to explain the value of the bases.

“There are a lot of people in the Defense Department who may not know a lot about these bases,” Conroy said, “and that’s why we need to educate them.”

Lynn Jacquez, a lobbyist hired by the task force, has also scheduled meetings with White House officials and members of Congress later in the week.

One of the most important meetings will come with former Sen. Alan Dixon (D-Ill.), whom President Clinton appointed as chairman of the defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

The commission will accept the defense secretary’s recommendations on which bases to close in March and then take the next five months to make up a final hit list to submit to the President for approval.

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Congress has 45 days to accept or reject the whole list and no opportunity to pick off individual bases. Essentially, the system is set up to allow military considerations, rather than parochial politics, to determine which bases to close.

But military leaders involved in the decision-making process and base-closing commission staff have agreed to meet with the Ventura County delegation this week. And delegation members say they would be remiss not to take the opportunity to press their case.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s special assistant on base closures said the delegation is smart to travel to Washington now to make its case before the commission starts its deliberations.

“It’s very, very important for communities to do what they’re doing,” said Judy Ann Miller, director of the governor’s office of military base retention. She said a number of other community representatives have already traveled to Washington to inform commission staff about their bases.

“The community needs to make sure the best story is told,” she said.

Miller said the timing is good because any community effort would get lost once the secretary of defense releases his list of bases recommended for closure.

The delegation’s pitch this week will concentrate on the special features that make Point Mugu and Port Hueneme unique assets to the military.

The Navy opened its base at Point Mugu in 1946 after a nationwide search found it to be the best place in the United States to operate a sea test range where the Navy could test missiles fired by aircraft over the ocean.

Geography was a big factor. Laguna Peak rises 1,456 feet next to the base. It’s now loaded with radar equipment and other instruments that can peer over the horizon to track aircraft and missiles.

Point Mugu is close to major universities and defense contractors, as well as Port of Hueneme’s deep-water port, which launches old ships and other floating targets for Point Mugu’s aircraft to shoot at with missiles.

Perhaps most important, Point Mugu has its own island, San Nicolas, located 61 miles off the coast. The island, with its airstrip, offers the security needed for secret tests. And it too is loaded with radar and other electronic equipment.

The instruments on San Nicolas, along with those at Point Mugu, Santa Cruz Island and Vandenberg, create the largest sea test range in the world for closely tracking aircraft and missiles.

Point Mugu remains the perfect place to operate the range because it is perched at its entrance, said former Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura), who plans to accompany the delegation to Washington.

And it’s more cost-effective to leave the related testing labs at Point Mugu, Lagomarsino said, so they can be close to actual flight tests conducted on the range.

“It’s a vital part of our national defense,” he said. “That’s why it was put there.”

As for Port Hueneme, the delegation will argue it is an ideal place for the Seabees and the Seabees’ Naval Construction Battalion Center. Port Hueneme has a deep-water port, a huge amount of warehouse space and a staging area for the Seabees to load their equipment and supplies on ships headed overseas.

The Seabees--special battalions trained to build bridges, airstrips, bunkers and other structures under enemy fire--often need to mobilize quickly as they did for Desert Shield before the Gulf War.

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When the battalions take off, they usually drive eight miles down Pacific Coast Highway and fly from Point Mugu.

The delegation plans to point out many of the ways the two bases operate together and why they should remain next to each other.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme works closely with Point Mugu to test ship weapons on the sea test range, especially on its Self-Defense Test Ship docked in the deep-water port.

The ship is configured to be operated by remote control deep in the sea test range so aircraft from Point Mugu can fire missiles at it and test its defense systems that shoot down missiles.

“It’s a symbol of how the activities come together,” said Capt. Scott Beachy, the commanding officer of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Ted Rains, who recently retired as technical director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, will also join the delegation to help with the presentations.

Other members of the delegation include: Moorpark Councilman Bernardo Perez; Carolyn Leavens, a citrus rancher and head of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.; Richard Wittenberg, the county’s chief administrative officer; Penny Bohannon, the county’s lobbyist in Sacramento, and Bill Simmons, the BRAC ’95 Task Force coordinator.

The county government will pay air fare, hotel and other expenses of county officials. Moorpark is paying the way for Perez to go to Washington, and the BRAC ’95 Task Force, which has raised about $200,000 for its lobbying campaign, will pick up the expenses of other members of the delegation.