No Plans to Close Navy Bases Found by Flynn in D.C.

Making a last-minute lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn on Thursday said he got no indication that either the Point Mugu or Port Hueneme naval bases are on the Pentagon’s recommended list of installations to shut down.

Flynn spent the past two days meeting with officials in the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and in the independent Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission that will begin its work next week.

“My mission was to glean any information I could get and make the pitch that we are open to more activities at Mugu and Hueneme,” Flynn said in a telephone interview.

The supervisor said he tried to pin down a rumor started by a Washington-based newsletter that the Pentagon wanted Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County to take over the duties of the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, at Point Mugu.

“There was no indication whatsoever that anything from Mugu would be moved to Vandenberg,” he said.

“The general tone would indicate that Mugu wasn’t on the list,” he said, adding that the Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme also appeared secure.

Military sources told The Times earlier this month that the Navy did not include either base on its list forwarded to the Defense Department. And sources believe the department has not targeted the two bases in its efforts to consolidate overlapping programs among the Navy, Air Force and Army.

Flynn’s lobbying trip took place just days before the Pentagon is scheduled to make its recommendations on which bases are no longer needed in the post-Cold War era. Defense Secretary William Perry plans to unveil the hit list Tuesday.

The following day, the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission will accept those recommendations to begin its hearings and deliberations on a final list of military installations that should close.

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The independent commission can jettison the Pentagon’s list and come up with its own. But in previous base closure rounds in 1991 and 1993, the commission has closely followed the suggestions of Defense Department experts.

During his lobbying excursion this week, Flynn meet with the commission’s entire 30-member staff. He was accompanied by Lynn Jacquez, a lobbyist hired by a local task force of public officials and business leaders set up to defend the county’s naval installations.

Flynn said he left the meeting feeling very positive about the future of local bases. “I think they reinforced their desire to see Mugu stay open,” Flynn said.

The commission staff did raise questions about potential restraints on growth from strict air-quality rules that forbid new governmental activities in regions that violate federal health standards for smog.

Those same questions, he said, arose in meetings with various Navy and Defense Department officials who are in charge of the military’s compliance with environmental laws.

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Flynn and Jacquez emphasized that local, state and federal environmental officials are working with the Navy so as not to intrude on Point Mugu’s missile-testing range over the ocean or prohibit local naval operations from taking on additional duties.

“I told them that we will provide for growth at Point Mugu,” Flynn said. The base, which primarily tests missiles, has decreased its workload over the years and has room to conduct more test flights and take on other missions, he said.

“There are empty hangars out there,” Flynn said of the Point Mugu base. “We would like to use those facilities more than they are being used now, get them up to capacity.”

Flynn said his lobbying trip was jolted by the report in The Kiplinger California Letter about the Point Mugu base being absorbed by Vandenberg Air Force Base.

He said military sources told him and Jacquez that there was nothing to support the assertion.

Their intelligence gathering came as a relief to Carolyn Leavens, a business community leader actively defending the county’s bases.

“We have to chalk it up to one more rumor and perhaps this one was wide of the mark,” said Leavens, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “We’ll just have wait a few more days and pray a lot.”