THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220452
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Stung by the loss of thousands of defense jobs in 1993, Hampton Roads figures to be a winner this weekend as an independent commission completes work on a new round of military base closings and realignments.
Pentagon recommendations that would bring more than 5,000 civilian and uniformed jobs to the area, most of them at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, appear all but certain to get the commission's approval.
``The fat lady hasn't sung. . . . We don't want to celebrate prematurely,'' cautioned Bob Matthias, an assistant to the Virginia Beach city manager.
But a variety of sources who've followed the work this spring of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission predicted it will support moving more than 200 Navy jets to Oceana. They would come from Florida and California.
The changes would make Oceana the home of all the Navy's U.S.-based F-14 Tomcat fighters and the East Coast hub for its F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers. The Hornets are the mainstay of the Navy's air power.
This morning on Capitol Hill, the commission begins what could be four days of debate and voting. Its recommendations must be forwarded to President Clinton and Congress by July 1 and must be accepted or rejected as a package.
Much of the commission's business today and Friday is expected to be televised by the C-SPAN cable network. Oceana and other Navy facilities are not expected to be considered before Friday.
Three previous commissions have ordered closings or realignments of more than 400 bases. Still, the military has cut its base structure by only about one-fifth since the end of the Cold War while trimming force levels by about one-third.
Oceana was considered for closure by a 1993 commission, and its future had been in doubt because of the Navy's move to phase out the A-6 Intruder bomber. Oceana had been the service's key A-6 base.
But a campaign led by Rep. Owen B. Pickett, a Virginia Beach Democrat, helped persuade the Navy to consolidate the Tomcats at Oceana and to bring in nine squadrons of Hornets that were slated for assignment to the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C.
Pickett enlisted dozens of business and civic leaders and retired Navy and Marine officers who've settled in the area to lobby Navy and Defense Department officials and the staff and members of the base closing commission.
Advisory committees he established in Norfolk and Virginia Beach began studying base closing issues in each city beginning in December 1993. Since then, they have met monthly, and sometimes more often, to marshal arguments on behalf of the area and plot strategies. Data they collected on area bases, plus correspondence and other contacts they generated with the military and the commission, fill more than six file drawers, a Pickett aide said.
The heart of their case was in cost estimates suggesting that moving the Hornets to Cherry Point would cost taxpayers far more than a shift to Oceana. The Navy eventually concluded that the cost difference would be about $300 million.
Matthias, in Virginia Beach, said Pickett, Rep. Norman Sisisky and Sens. Charles S. Robb and John Warner were critical to the local lobbying effort. As for others, ``I don't want to mention anybody's name, because I'll leave somebody out,'' he said.
``The fact that we had the facts on our side didn't hurt,'' Matthias added.
North Carolina officials have disputed those facts, pleading with the base closing commission to overrule the Navy and let the jets go to Cherry Point. The eight-member panel has shown little interest in their arguments, however.
While Oceana appears likely to gain, two substantial Army facilities west of Hampton Roads are endangered.
Fort Pickett, a training base west of Petersburg, has been recommended for redesignation as a ``reserve enclave.'' That would mean the transfer of most of its 362 jobs to other bases. The Army would leave it to the National Guard to manage Fort Pickett and says it wants continued access to Fort Pickett's artillery ranges.
Also facing closure is Kenner Army Hospital at Fort Lee, just east of Petersburg. The service wants to convert it to an outpatient clinic.
KEYWORDS: BASE CLOSINGS MILITARY BASES by CNB