Decision Nears on Fate of Area Naval Base

It’s a waiting game now. After months of lobbying and letter-writing, months of sifting through Defense Department documents for evidence to support saving thousands of jobs at Naval Base Ventura County, local officials are set to learn this week if they have accomplished their mission.

The commission evaluating Pentagon recommendations for base closures and realignments is scheduled to begin final deliberations Wednesday as it decides whether to shut down, consolidate or redistribute functions at more than 800 installations nationwide.

The Ventura County base, under a Pentagon plan unveiled in May, is slated to transfer as many as 2,856 jobs to other facilities. The move is meant to streamline operations and save money.

But the proposal has touched off a furious counteroffensive, with elected officials, community leaders and Navy personnel arguing that the Pentagon understated the base’s military value and that its recommendations would result in little or no cost savings and jeopardize the readiness of U.S. armed forces.

“Very few people will move with their jobs, and that loss of intellectual capital will be devastating to our fighting forces,” said George Strohsahl, a retired admiral and former commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center at Point Mugu.

Strohsahl was among three retired Navy officers and two members of Congress who urged rejection of the Pentagon plan last month before the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

The nine-member panel is expected to make its recommendations this week to President Bush.

“The base has economic value to the county,” Strohsahl said. “But more importantly, it has irreplaceable military value to this country.”

Many of those in jobs targeted for transfer say they won’t leave the area, even if the work does.

Under the Pentagon’s proposal, as many as 2,856 jobs -- military personnel, civilian employees and contractors employed directly at the base -- would transfer, most to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the high desert. The plan also states that an additional 3,517 nongovernment support jobs could disappear over the next five years.

Naval Base Ventura County is expected to pick up about 860 jobs from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Norco, which is on the closure list.

Informal polls taken at the Ventura County base show about 80% of those slated for transfer would quit or retire rather than leave the area.

Many are like electronic engineer Todd Sohn, 43, who has worked at the base for 17 years and has planted deep roots in the community.

With a home in Ventura and two children in school, Sohn said he would look for private sector work if his job is transferred, as scheduled, to China Lake, near Ridgecrest in northeastern Kern County.

“I lived in the desert for a while when I went to college, and I don’t want to go back,” said the University of Arizona graduate, who works in electronic warfare.

“If you look at it from a technical point of view, this move doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Even if there is a little bit of cost savings, the loss of talent is going to adversely affect the war fighter for years to come.”

That is among the arguments that base supporters have been making for months.

Naval Base Ventura County consists of Point Mugu Naval Air Station and the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion Center, one of two Seabee bases in the United States.

Under a previous realignment plan, Point Mugu and China Lake were placed under a single command in 1992 and have since been consolidating operations.

But base supporters in Ventura County say the current proposal goes too far.

Under the realignment, for example, about 1,000 employees who maintain and operate the Navy’s 36,000-square-mile missile testing range in the waters off Point Mugu would transfer to China Lake and perform those duties from 150 miles away, said retired Navy Capt. Jack Dodd, a chief strategist in the county’s campaign to retain jobs.

The move would weaken testing efficiency and military training, Dodd said. Moreover, he said a military analysis showing a 20-year savings of $433,000 is flawed because it fails to account for recurring annual operating costs and the costs of moving support functions to China Lake. His own analysis shows the move would lose money over 20 years.

Dodd said that after studying the material used by the Defense Department to justify other job transfers, he believes much of the analysis is flawed.

“All of the closures and realignments should be done in order to enhance the capabilities of our men and women in uniform, but we believe these recommendations would decrease military value,” Dodd said.