Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406210123
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JACK DORSEY LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Today, we are here to make certain we are prepared for the future,'' Allen said at a downtown Norfolk news conference as he created the Commission on Base Retention and Defense Adjustment.
Allen said that as the 1995 round of base closings approaches, Virginia will be thinking of South Carolina, where Charleston took perhaps the biggest hit from the 1993 round of base closings.
``That is a prime example,'' Allen said. ``We don't want to be caught flat-footed. Each base has its own strength and its own challenges to present to the BRAC commission.''
Allen wants his new commission to study base closing issues closely and protect what it can but be prepared to ``retool and readjust'' communities, businesses and individuals when closings do come. The commission also will help Virginia move ``to an economy that is less dependent on federal defense expenditures.''
The state is second in the nation in federal defense spending per capita and second in total U.S. defense expenditures.
Allen named to the commission about 30 men and women from business, the military, politics and academia. They include Nicole Kinser, public information officer for the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.
Communities have had little success influencing base-closing decisions in the past. Congress sought to insulate the process from political pressure when it set up the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Committee.
Charleston found that out when it formed a regional committee in 1993, hiring consulting firms and lobbying in the nation's capital. Despite the yearlong effort, the base-closing commission took away the city's shipyard, its ships, submarines and naval base.
Virginia lost more than it expected, too, in 1993, Allen said, and stands to lose even more if projections come true that one of every two military installations in the country eventually will close.
``During the Reagan military buildup in the 1980s, Virginia benefited greatly and considerably, especially in the area of naval shipbuilding.
``But now is the post-Cold War era of the 1990s. The U.S. defense budget ... is shrinking and forcing the downsizing of the military. The effect obviously is reverberating all across the Commonwealth ... causing apprehension and anxiety for many Virginians.''
President Clinton will appoint members of the 1995 base-closing commission in January. Public hearings begin in March and the commission makes its recommendations to the president by June 1.
by CNB