Panel Votes to Move Up to 2,250 Ventura County Naval Jobs

Although spared hundreds of job losses, Naval Base Ventura County was dealt a heavy blow Thursday as the panel evaluating base closures and realignments decided to shift as many as 2,250 positions from the coastal installation to the high desert Navy base at China Lake.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to transfer the base’s weapons and armaments research functions, which include maintenance and operation of the Navy’s 36,000-square-mile missile testing range in the waters off Point Mugu. In separate actions, the nine-member panel spared about 600 jobs that also had been slated for transfer, including those that develop electronic warfare systems.

Local officials, who have been scrambling for months to save jobs at the Navy base, were trying to determine late Thursday how many positions would be lost and vowing to press their fight in Congress and at the White House. The base supports about 17,000 government and civilian jobs.

“This is a significant loss to our county,” said Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, co-chairwoman of the county’s base closure task force.

“We won some, we lost some, but the biggest loss today was the one most harmful to our community,” Long said. “It’s not over. We still intend to work this issue strongly and to continue [to tell] whoever will listen in Washington that they made a big mistake.”

In Washington, elected leaders who represent Ventura County are lining up to help press the case.

“I am disappointed the commission voted to uphold some of the Pentagon’s misguided recommendations, including moving missions and jobs away from Naval Base Ventura County,” said U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara). “This vote defies common sense.”

Capps, another member of Congress and three retired Navy officers urged rejection of the Pentagon plan last month before a regional hearing of the base closure commission.

Community leaders and Navy personnel have argued for months that the Pentagon erred in putting Naval Base Ventura County on a list of installations for realignment. In 1992, Point Mugu and China Lake were placed under a single command and have since worked to consolidate functions. The latest move was meant to further streamline operations and save taxpayers money.

But base supporters said the Pentagon understated the military value of the Ventura County base and that its recommendations would result in little or no cost savings and jeopardize the readiness of armed forces.

Officials said they feared the shift would cause the loss of valuable military expertise, citing polls taken at the Ventura County base showing upward of 80% of those slated for transfer would quit or retire, rather than leave the area.

Those sentiments were echoed by staff members for the base closure commission and some of the commissioners themselves.

“I think we will lose a lot of people,” said Commissioner James H. Bilbray, a former Army reservist and Democratic congressman from Nevada. He is one of two commissioners to visit the Ventura County base, which consists of the Point Mugu Naval Air Station and the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion Center.

Leaders of the Ventura County base closure task force said the jobs are expected to move to China Lake in four to six years, and that it could take all of that time to know the actual job-loss toll.