His Quest Is Noble, but Is It Off Base?
“Is it over?” I ask Ken Lee, and he says, “No, I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why.”
We’re having a conversation that Lee, a 43-year-old business owner, has had many times in recent years. Every time it looks like his quest to save the military housing and commissary at the old El Toro Marine base has finally run its course, he soldiers on.
So why give up now, even after last week when the Lennar Corp. home builders gobbled up the final parcels of land at the base and envisioned a future without military facilities?
I can’t approach the passion Lee has for the issue, but I’m drawn to it -- if only because it’s for such a near-obscure niche of the overall story of the mammoth 3,700-acre base.
That is, while everyone else over the last decade has been fervently arguing over an international airport or a Great Park, Lee’s attention has been riveted on sparing the 4,500 units that once housed El Toro’s enlisted men and their families. And he also wants to save the sprawling commissary that fed them.
And he’s not talking about saving them as museum pieces. He wants the units and the commissary to get back up and running for Orange County’s military population. Offering that kind of low-rent housing, Lee says, is the least we can do to repay them for their service.
When the final parcels were auctioned off last week, I figured Lee might be willing to give up.
Nope, he says.
“I’d like to see a 120-day cooling off period, if not a six-month period,” he says, “to give the government and the Department of Defense a chance to reevaluate.”
Reevaluate what? “Our current needs and future projected needs,” he says, referring to military priorities. “In light of all the troops coming back from Europe, and we have other threats in the world that are on the brink of becoming issues, I think a cooling-off period would serve the country.” And what if, he says, America is hit by another terrorist attack in the next few months and needs auxiliary bases?
He concedes my point, sort of, that Pentagon officials know about potential crises. “You’d be surprised,” he says. “People are not thinking this far down the road when we’re talking about disposing of a national asset like El Toro.”
To mix our military metaphors, I’m afraid that ship has sailed.
Lee’s mission continues one begun by his father, a career Air Force man who died in 2000. “I grew up in a military family,” Lee says. “I know what they’re going through, I know what it’s like. I know how difficult it is for military families to feed their kids and put a roof over their heads. I’ve lived it, I’ve been there. If we don’t take better care of the troops we have now, I’m afraid we’ll have no choice but to bring back the draft.”
The housing units run the gamut from detached single-family homes to barracks and, Lee says, “they’re in remarkably great condition. I was inside the units a couple months ago and, honest to God, it looked like they had turned off the lights and just left. The carpets and appliances were still there.”
I’m not aware of anyone in power who has given Lee the least encouragement, but he says he “absolutely” believes he can change hearts and minds. “Call it the optimistic view,” he says. “It’s the right thing, the right solution.
“Of course, the question is: Will the right solution prevail at the right time?”
He reminds me more than once that base housing and keeping the commissary would be totally compatible with any development plans. Park, airport, whatever.
I’m paid to ask the tough questions. “Have people called you kooky?”
No, Lee says. “They have called it a noble effort.”
Whether they were being euphemistic or not doesn’t really matter to him.
“A lot of people quit, just before they’re right at the brink of success on a project like this,” Lee says. “They quit, and they never really know what really might have happened.”
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.
