THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502170561
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Two years ago, when the Pentagon asked it to close or rearrange 165 military bases, the 1993 BRAC - Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission - went looking for more.
From March to May, the commission put in play 73 additional bases, including several in Hampton Roads. Most survived, but the angst their unexpected brush with doom produced in chambers of commerce and city halls from Virginia Beach to San Diego was still evident this week on Capitol Hill.
And a new, 1995 base commission has gotten the message.
In a hearing Wednesday with the Senate Armed Services Committee and at least one private meeting with congressional leaders, prospective members of BRAC-95 assured lawmakers that they'll make few additions to the base-closing target list that Defense Secretary William Perry is to release on Feb. 28.
``I would hope, as I know everyone would, that we could keep (additions) to a minimum,'' said Rebecca Cox, the only 1993 commissioner reappointed for this year's round of base deliberations.
Commission Chairman Alan J. Dixon apparently voiced similar sentiments in a private session with some congressmen on Monday. Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, a Newport News Republican who attended that meeting, said Dixon suggested the '93 panel ``had gone considerably beyond what was appropriate.''
Cox said the '93 commission wasn't so much eager to close bases as it was to figure out how the Pentagon arrived at recommendations on closures. As they began work in March, members received a list of Defense Department proposals, but ``no information on how they got where they got,'' Cox said.
So the commission, she said, decided to compare bases on the Pentagon's list with bases the military said it wanted to preserve.
Similar comparisons shouldn't be necessary this year, Cox said, because the Pentagon has agreed to provide far more information on how it arrives at its base recommendations.
Perry now is in the final stages of studying base-closing proposals by each of the military branches, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday. Once the secretary releases his list, the Pentagon also will provide a report from each of the services on the recommendations it made to Perry, a spokesman said.
The 73 bases the 1993 commission added for consideration to then-Secretary Les Aspin's recommended list included Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, Fort Monroe in Hampton and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
All were spared, but local officials and congressmen have spent much of the intervening two years trying to make sure those and other local facilities don't pop up as targets again this year.
``It was just a mad scramble,'' recalled Jerry Riendeau, a retired Navy rear admiral who helped build a hurried defense of Oceana two years ago.
``There was no organized effort before then . . .'' he said. ``When you're not on the list, you don't mobilize.''
Riendeau now is part of a group of former military officers, elected officials and business executives organized by Rep. Owen B. Pickett, D-Va., to defend bases in South Hampton Roads.
Like similar groups across the country, they've lobbied civilian and uniformed leaders in the Pentagon and staff members of the base-closing commission for much of the past year in an effort to keep local facilities off any BRAC '95 lists.
Riendeau, a former commander of all the Navy's East Coast tactical air bases, said he's comfortable now about the prospects for Oceana and the shipyard.
And if those facilities are kept, he suggested, this year's commission should take a hard look at the '93 decision to close the Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot.
With the closing of Cecil Field in Jacksonville, ``Oceana is the best operating base on the East Coast,'' Riendeau said. The Navy should maintain a repair facility nearby rather than shifting the work to depots in Jacksonville and Cherry Point, N.C., he asserted.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES BASE CLOSINGS by CNB