Gallegly Urges Panel Not to Merge Bases

Making last-minute appeals, Rep. Elton Gallegly and other local Navy supporters on Tuesday urged the base-closing commission to ignore a controversial Pentagon report that recommended shutting down the Point Mugu Navy base to save tax dollars.

Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) fired off letters to each of the eight commissioners late Tuesday after he learned that commission staff members were debating the merits of merging Point Mugu with other missile-testing centers during this year’s round of base closures.

In the letters, Gallegly pointed out that Point Mugu ranked second in military importance among the Navy’s 64 technical centers, largely because of its massive sea test range used for firing missiles and other weapons.

His letters also took issue with a June 8 report from the Defense Department’s inspector general that recommended transferring Point Mugu’s missile-testing operations and the bulk of its 9,000 jobs to its sister base at China Lake in the upper Mojave Desert.

Although Pentagon officials decided the controversial report had no place in forming its recommended hit list of bases, the Defense Base Closing and Realignment Commission can draw information from any source.

And in its deliberations Tuesday, commission staff members brought up the report, which concludes that the Navy could save $1.7 billion over the next 20 years by combining overlapping programs between Point Mugu and China Lake.

The Navy has strongly rebutted the report, saying its conclusions are based on inaccurate data and faulty assumptions.

“The issue right now is the (inspector general’s) report,” said Cal Carrera, co-chairman of the BRAC ’95 Task Force, a local pro-base lobbying group. “We’ve been submitting some rebuttals and other information papers to the commission staff over the past few days.”

The commission has set May 10 as its internal deadline for weighing which bases should be added to the Pentagon’s list of recommended closures. Most recently, the staff has been weighing whether to recommend that the commissioners consider consolidating aircraft and weapons-testing centers, including the possible merger of Navy and Air Force bases.

“It is hard to tell what they are going to do,” said county Supervisor John K. Flynn. “The only thing working on our side is that they are running out of time.”