Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993 TAG: 9306270038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
A day after the independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission proposed deep cuts in the oceangoing Navy, it began to trim Navy and Marine air operations. Besides Norfolk, it moved to close similar plants in the San Francisco area and the Florida panhandle, and airfields in northern Florida, Southern California and Hawaii.
The commission will turn its attention to the Washington, D.C., area today, and its decisions could have a profound financial impact.
One plan before the panel would take about 11,500 Navy office jobs out of the Crystal City area of Arlington, Va., a move that local officials say would leave parts of the area a high-rise ghost town. Another proposal would shut down a 2,800-worker Navy electronics facility in St. Mary's County, Md.
Many of the Crystal City jobs would not leave the area, but go to Navy facilities in the Virginia suburbs and St. Mary's County.
In four days of deliberations, the commission - whose decisions are not final but are difficult to overturn - has proposed fundamental changes in the bases run by the U.S. military. It has recommended that the Navy abandon the historic port of Charleston, S.C., and shut down two major shipyards, and that the Air Force close or dramatically scale back four strategic bases.
The panel's recommendations so far would eliminate or uproot almost 90,000 jobs. Charleston and the San Francisco Bay areas would be hit hardest, with Charleston losing more than 14,000 positions and the Bay area about 25,000. Upstate New York would lose two air bases and about 7,000 jobs. Other rural areas whose economies depend heavily on a single base also would be crippled.
The commission was created by Congress to make such politically painful decisions, but the strain of carrying out the job has shown on its seven members. Commission Chairman Jim Courter said Saturday that "one of the great ironies of the end of the Cold War" is that the panel is eliminating "services that were badly needed up to just a few years ago."
"Our decisions must be based on the national interest," Courter said. "I would ask [affected communities] to understand that. It may be difficult . . . [but] there is certainly life after base closure."
When the commission completes its work, which it is scheduled to do today, its recommendations will be forwarded to President Clinton and Congress, which can reject the entire package but cannot make individual changes. The actions of two previous base closing commissions have been accepted.
In the past two days, the panel has hit hardest at the Navy, whose facilities were relatively unscathed by the first two base-closing commissions. Saturday the group voted to close two of the service's jet fighter bases - Cecil Naval Air Station near Jacksonville, Fla., and Barbers Point NAS in Hawaii - and the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station near Irvine, Calif.
Along with the Norfolk aircraft repair plant, the group also moved to close similar facilities in Pensacola, Fla. and Alameda, Calif.
Tens of thousands of Navy-related jobs remain in the Norfolk area, for which the closing of Florida's Cecil Field also provided good news. Virginia Beach's Oceana Naval Air Station was competing with Cecil Field to remain open. Courter said Saturday that commission members were told that Oceana has a classified mission which makes it almost impossible to close. If Cecil field closes, a number of its planes and about 2,500 uniformed personnel will be transferred to Oceana.
Members also voted Saturday to close a naval airfield on the Pacific island of Guam because local citizens there requested it. Some Guam residents want to develop the land for private use.
by CNB