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New wave of base closures feared
None of the state's 61 sites wants to be on the '05 hit list
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Sunday, December 22, 2002

 

WASHINGTON -- The next round of military base closings won't begin until March 2005, but California communities from Marysville to San Diego already are hard at work trying to protect the state's remaining 61 installations after the disproportionate hit it took in earlier rounds.
"The wolf comes around again," said Joe Craver, the former chairman of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce's 1995 base closing committee, now serving again on a chamber panel to trying to "BRAC proof" the area's defense complexes.

BRAC is the acronym for the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which will be reactivated in March 2005 with the appointment of new members to go over the Pentagon's proposed base hit list. BRAC will issue its final recommendations to the president and Congress later that year. They can either approve or disapprove those recommendations, but not amend them.

This next, perhaps final round was authorized by Congress a year ago as part of the 2002 defense authorization bill, touching off a rush by base communities to hire consultants and order studies to justify why their installations should not be closed.

San Diego, which Craver said has the highest concentration of military personnel because of the proximity of major Navy and Marine bases, has hired William J. Cassidy Jr., a former Navy deputy assistant secretary, to protect its flank.

"We don't think we're that vulnerable, but we are not complacent either," Craver said. "Where we could be vulnerable, it is better to set up a campaign to defend these bases."

There have been four previous rounds, and California has been hit hard in all of them.

A total of 29 California defense installations, including Mather and McClellan Air Force Bases in Sacramento County, were closed, shutting off billions of dollars in military payroll and buying power up and down the state. Those closures are estimated to have cost California more than $9.6 billion in lost revenues and more than 92,000 direct jobs.

While there are now no major military installations in Sacramento left to close, the local economy still may not be out of the risk zone.

Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield and Beale Air Force Base near Marysville could become targets, and they are within the gravitational pull of the Sacramento metropolitan area's economy.

The expectation is that the 2005 round will be brutal. In testifying in favor of starting the closure process in 2003, which Congress rejected, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that "we are carrying something like 20 to 25 percent more base structure than we need."

Paul Hirsch, who worked as an analyst for the 1991 commission, now is a Washington, D.C., consultant for the protection of Travis and at least five other installations around the country. Hirsch said there's little doubt the Bush administration is going to be aggressive.

"This could be the worst of the BRAC rounds," he said. "All of the easy decisions have already been made."

He said the White House also has populated the Pentagon with former corporate executives used to making tough economic decisions.

"They know how to do this," he said. "They will make the necessary cuts. They think that every $1 billion they don't spend on bases can be spent buying new weapons."

All this couldn't come at a worse time for California, which is confronting a nearly $35 billion state budget shortfall.

The state was one of the first to hire a coordinator, retired Army Gen. William Jefferds, and provide him staff and money to help shore up support for the state military complex.

But budget cuts already have cost Jefferds his paid staff in the state Department of Technology, Trade and Commerce, and many are worried that with the state's dire financial predicament, Jefferd's Office of Military Reuse and Retention could be eliminated.

Jefferds declined to be interviewed, but others said the work of his office is unlikely to disappear.

"With the budget deficit, it is very difficult to predict what impact it will have," said Norman Williams, assistant secretary for the Department of Technology, Trade and Commerce. "But we definitely want to help communities prepare for the next round, and we foresee helping them as much as we can and for as long as possible."

Still, Tim Johnson, who worked for Sacramento in the days when Mather and McClellan were being shuttered and now heads the Yuba-Sutter Economic Development Council trying to protect Beale, said the deep cuts in Jefferd's office at this juncture could be costly.

He credited that office with the success of Beale in attracting the Global Hawk, an unmanned spy plane, to the base to give it an expanded mission in advanced surveillance. The office also hired a Washington-area consultant, the Spectrum Group, to study the extent of encroachment by housing and land use restrictions on defense installations in the state, including Beale.

"This has been a formidable organization," Johnson said. "We are pleading our case before the Legislature. They need to understand that defense is something like a $70 billion impact on our state."

The state's strongest argument in 2005, however, is that there's nothing left to cut.

"After the last rounds of BRAC, we have a lot of bases that are one of a kind," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, whose district includes Travis. "Previous rounds delivered us almost specialty bases."

Tauscher questioned whether Congress would even approve more base closings when a final proposal reaches it in 2005, considering the ongoing war on terrorism and military uncertainties in the Middle East and elsewhere.

"When we are deploying National Guard and reservists during unparalleled times, shrinking the size of the military's footprint so we can save money might not be the wisest national security strategy for our country," she said.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a senior Democrat on the Senate panel that writes military construction spending bills, said she won't support more base closures until the Pentagon cleans up the environmental mess at the ones shut in earlier rounds.

"The military still has a lot of work to do," she insisted.

Community leaders around Travis and Beale, however, aren't taking any bets that the 2005 round will be derailed.

Travis is a key center for airlifting goods and cargo to military bases and hot spots around the world. It has been designated as the new home for a dozen C-17 transports to complement its larger C-5 fleet. A recent defense-spending bill gave Travis $70 million to build facilities for its expanding airlift mission.

Still, Fairfield and Solano County are spending their own money trying to further insulate the base. Fairfield Vice Mayor Harry Price said the city recently bought 1,800 acres of open agricultural property as added buffer around the base to prevent development from encroaching on the base's flight paths.

"We are doing this kind of effort so that Travis won't even appear on a list," Price said. "That's our lobbying goal."

Beale, the home of high-flying surveillance aircraft that proved crucial during Afghanistan operations, also has benefitted from the work of the region's united congressional delegation to fund new firefighting and an airstrip tower.

"I suspect California still will be vulnerable," Johnson said. "But most of the things left in California now are really key-critical."

 

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Deputy Under Secretary DuBois Media Roundtable on Streamlining Installations
(Media roundtable on streamlining installations.)

Presenter: Raymond DuBois, DUSD (Installations and Environment)

Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 - 9:05 a.m. EST

United States Department of Defense News TranscriptOn the web: http://www.defenselink.mil /news/Dec2002/t12202002_t1220dub.html Media contact: media@defenselink.mil or +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact: public@defenselink.mil or +1 (703) 428-0711


Staff: Well, thanks for joining us this morning. Mr. Ray DuBois, who is the deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, as well as has some other hats, too -- he has a very big portfolio -- but he's here today to talk about installations and environment, and particularly about his efforts to streamline headquarters.
So, sir, let's go ahead and get started.
DuBois: As Bryan [Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs (media operations)] said, on the 1st of October, the secretary -- actually, it was late in the summer -- he said, "Would you come and talk to me about taking Doc Cooke's job?" And I talked to the deputy secretary and others, and I said, "Do you think the secretary of Defense means to add Doc Cooke's job to what I'm doing, or take Doc's job, in a separate sense?" They said, "No, no, no; all together." I said, "I see. And how many hours in the day can we manufacture to do all of this?"
In any event, I did do that. I am shouldering both the Washington Headquarters Services and the Installations and Environment portfolios, which have interesting overlaps. And as we're finding, there are ways to perhaps do things a little bit better in terms -- especially in terms of real estate management here in the national capital region.
But I think that most of you might want to focus on some of the things that we deal with in the Installations and Environment portfolio, arguably high political profiles in each of the areas, but important to the secretary and to the president, such as housing and quality of life, housing privatization programs, and I can address some of those. But we also have issues pertaining to BRAC, and I want to talk a little bit about that this morning, and the environmental encroachment initiative, which the department -- the administration proposed to Congress last year. And that has implications for our environmental management systems, guidelines that I've put out. There are a couple of interesting aspects of that that I can address.
But on the environmental front, I also want to let folks know that we do a great deal overseas. Our combatant commanders come in to me frequently and request environmental security support, if you will, for countries within their AOR. I have given and participated in a major conference under General Tommy Franks, sponsorship for countries in Central Asia. I've also given and participated in a conference in terms of the countries which have newly joined NATO, under General Ralston's sponsorship. I've also sent Curtis Bowling, the assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense, to South America, under General Tom Hill's sponsorship in SOUTHCOM.
In any event, some of the highlights, I think, as you know, of the past year certainly have to be the progress that we've made, the dramatic progress that we've made, in housing. The president made it very clear in the spring of '01.
In fact, the very first trip that he took on Air Force One was to Fort Stewart, Georgia. I advanced that trip with the director for president advance, Brian Montgomery, and I knew -- we knew, obviously, where the president was going to go when he and the secretary went to Fort Stewart. What we didn't know was how the president would react to the housing and barracks situations that he was exposed to. Not surprisingly, he turned to the secretary and said, "We've got to do something about this, and we've got to do something about this as quickly as possible."
Now it is true that the Clinton administration had put into place a housing privatization program, which, working with the Congress, getting the congressional authorization to do this, had taken hold. All major changes in policy and programs in this department do not -- are not necessarily quickly embraced by the services -- true in this regard also.
But by the time that we came here in January of 2001, there were already contracted for privatization little less than 6,000 housing units of the somewhat less than 270,000 that the Department of Defense has. Since January 2001, we have -- and by the end of this fiscal year, we will have contracted with the private sector for the upgrade and improvement of 68,000 housing units in the Department of Defense. That's a tenfold increase. These numbers, by themselves, are dramatic. The president and the secretary have laid down a marker: fix inadequate housing by 2007. We have approximately or we were faced with approximately 180,000 inadequate housing units in our inventory. But to have addressed by the end of this fiscal year some 68,000 -- not all of which, however, were inadequate -- I think, is an achievement worth recognizing.
BRAC '05. As you know, the president went to the Congress with an initiative and asked them for authorization for a BRAC round -- the first time since 1995. The Congress, the secretary secured congressional authority to execute a BRAC round in 2005. I think the Congress agreed to do it, at the secretary's urging, because it recognized the importance to transforming and restructuring the real property assets of the Department of Defense.
Yesterday, the secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld, convened the first meeting of the combined Infrastructure Executive Council and the Infrastructure Steering Group, which as a practical matter, means the 30 top leaders, military and civilian in this department and three military departments. Around that table, with some moderate exceptions because of travel outside of the city, but the deputy secretary was there, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs were there, service secretary, service chiefs, vice chiefs, assistant secretaries and the unders here in OSD.
There was a unanimous agreement in the dialogue with the secretary of Defense that this was a -- this is a singular opportunity, perhaps the last best chance in a generation, to reshape our infrastructure to optimize military readiness, not just in the United States; remember that BRAC -- the BRAC authority, is domestically focused. The secretary, as some of you know, has been working with the chairman of the combat and commanders to address the overseas basing structure which we have, which is a Cold War legacy and must be reconfigured to fight the global war on terrorism.
Now, because of its importance, the service secretaries and Pete Aldridge, the undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, made a recommendation to the secretary of Defense that BRAC deserved its own corporate decision structure. And so the Infrastructure Executive Council, made up of the deputy secretary and the chair, the chairman of joint chiefs, the service secretaries, and the service chiefs and Pete Aldridge constitute the board of directors, if you will, through which all recommendations will flow to the secretary of Defense by the spring of '05.
Those of you who are familiar with how this building operates realize that that Infrastructure Executive Council is essentially the senior leadership review group of the department. But it does extend to the vice-chiefs and the assistant service secretaries for installations and environment, who will bear the burden -- the analytic and preliminary decision burdens through the next two years.
Let's move on to the Range Readiness and Preservation Initiative, an initiative which was hammered out between the Department of Defense, the Department of Interior, the Department of Commerce, NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality under the guidance of OMB last year; and as you know, this initiative on the part of the administration to ask Congress to address some of the aspects of environmental statutes which we believed required clarifications, to allow us some flexibility on our test and training ranges and our installations to better maintain military readiness.
You've heard me and others say that the environmental encroachment poses challenges to us in terms of our ability to fight as we train -- or, excuse me, train as we fight. The problem is that we end up fighting as we train. When you send young soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines out to Afghanistan, they end up fighting as they have trained. When training is impacted negatively by environmental encroachment -- environmental encroachment is not just the Endangered Species Act and critical habitat management issues that we face every day; it's also urban sprawl, and it's also airspace management, it's also spectrum competition. All of these issues I put under the umbrella of encroachment.
Now, those of you who have carefully watched what happened last year know that the Congress, in the FY '03 Defense Authorization Act, included or adopted two so-called affirmative land provisions and adopted only one of the six environmental amendments which we had requested. That was the Migratory Bird Treaty Act temporary exemption, which they granted, for the incidental taking of migratory birds during military readiness activities.
I am grateful to Congress to have -- we are grateful to have addressed these serious readiness concerns, which -- I was reminded the other day of all the hearings that we had, of all the discussions that we had with the National Governors' Association, with NGOs, with environmental groups, with military groups, perhaps the most dramatic moment, in my mind, was when the four vice chiefs appeared before the Environment and Public Works Committee of the Senate -- Senator Jeffords in the chair, Senator Smith ranking, Senator Inhofe and Senator Warner also there -- to demonstrate -- and, I think, in a very compelling way -- the challenges that we face in terms of environmental encroachment.
Now you're right to ask: What's in store for the next legislative cycle? As you know, the secretary and the director of OMB and ultimately the president are in the final throes of crafting the FY '04 budget and program. It is our view, my view, that what we presented last year is no less important and no less compelling than this year. If anything, it is more important than ever that we again engage the Congress in this dialogue over these issues.
What exactly will be in the administration's request I can't talk to, other than to let you from my personal standpoint the six provisions that we suggested or urged that Congress adopt remain, in our view, very important.
Part of that was the request to amend the Endangered Species Act to allow for a congressionally mandated requirement -- the Sikes Act -- allow the Defense Department to use the mandated requirement under the Sikes Act to provide critical habitat management under the integrated natural resource management plans.
Now, so-called INRMPs, as many of you know who study this, are a very sophisticated way to holistically manage a property on test and training ranges as well as installations. We think that it in every way addresses critical habitat issues and focuses on the preservation of real property and the maintenance of healthy and functional ecosystems. Granted, there are disagreements between us and some environmental groups, albeit not all, in this regard, but we will raise the issue again.
A number of articles have appeared over the past year addressing the so-called crumbling infrastructure which the Department of Defense has. The sustainment of our facilities, the restoration and recapitalization of our facilities, including the building you're in now, which is arguably the most well-recognized U.S. military installation in the world, takes a considerable amount of money. But how to determine what's the right amount of money has always been a difficult analysis and calculation to make.
The facilities sustainment model and the facilities recapitalization metric, which we have worked on for several years both under Secretary Cohen and now under Secretary Rumsfeld, has -- and I checked with a number of experts in the private sector to see whether our models, our management and financial models, pass muster with them in terms of how they manage -- how does ExxonMobil; how does General Motors; how does Procter & Gamble manage their enormous real estate and real property assets? And they say that our models are as good as theirs. In fact, we modeled our model after many of theirs.
Last year, you may remember that I was criticized, that the department was criticized, that they hadn't put enough money into military construction, enough money in facilities sustainment. There are competing and conflicting requirements within this department; there is a top line under which everything has to be appropriately funded. I think that we have focused on mission-critical requirements when it comes to military construction. There is no mission-critical requirement that hasn't been appropriately funded in either '03 or in the budget that we're building for '04.
There is a connection -- and make no mistake about it -- the excess capacity that this department has, hence the request for BRAC and the Congress's authorization to do it. That does not mean we will not continue to sustain, which means maintain, the facilities that we have now, even though there will be a BRAC, a set of decisions in the spring and summer of 2005, unknown to what extent it will impact installations and excess capacity. But if yesterday's discussion with the secretary of Defense and the senior leadership of this department is any indication, there is not only a recognition that we must be comprehensive and even-handed in our approach to this very difficult task, but that there will be a product which will reconfigure and, yes, downsize our real property assets around the world.
There are some of the highlights that I have chosen over the past year, and yes, they have serious implications for the next year. I am pleased to be here, and will try to answer your questions on these or other topics.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: The council, the Infrastructure Executive Council, you said they're going to review recommendations. Who's making the recommendations?
DuBois: As opposed to prior BRACs -- we've had four of them -- they were essentially service-centric. That is to say the services, independent of each other, wrestled with their own BRAC analysis, and at the end, presented them to the secretary of Defense. This secretary of Defense has said no, we're going to turn that around. While there are certain operational and military or service-centric, service-specific aspects of your real estate that we will -- that the services appropriately will address, simultaneously there will be categories of functions or facilities which we -- which I put into the basket called "business operations" as opposed to "military operations" -- which will be addressed in a cross-service way. Cross- service analytic teams will be stood up to look at cross-service assets.
Now, you want to know which categories fall into that basket. The Infrastructure Executive Council, on or before April 15th of next year, will recommend to the secretary what those categories are. Prior BRACs actually carved out certain categories -- initial pilot trainings, laboratories, health-care delivery military treatment facilities. I don't know precisely which categories, and how they will be carved out, will the IEC recommend to the secretary; I do know this: that there are some, in my mind, obvious ones.
And while it's not a functional category, if one were to look at the national capital region, made up of installations owned by four services, plus the Pentagon, the only military reservation not owned by a service, "owned," quote, by the secretary of Defense, you could imagine that if it's not done in a cross-service way, the rationalization and use -- appropriate use of our real estate in the national capital region will not be optimized.
We should look towards more joint use of bases. Twenty-five years ago -- 27 years ago, when Secretary Rumsfeld and I were in the Pentagon, most, if not all, installations were single-service, single- mission. Over the last 25 years, we have seen a movement toward multi-service, multi-mission installations, albeit it not a lot. The secretary put down the marker: maximize joint use. In the national capital region, it's obvious that an Army function or facility ought to be able to exist on an Air Force installation. We're not going to homogenize the installations of the NCR, but what we are going to do is rationalize where certain functions ought to best exist.
We have now huge -- excuse me -- very large military installations here in the Washington area. We also have an enormous amount of leased space in the Washington metropolitan area. And the question is, can we better utilize the military installations, the military real property assets owned by the services, and reduce the expense of leased space? I don't know yet, but I do know the only way to properly rationalize that is to do it in a cross-service way.
Q: If I can just follow up real quick, on the actual list of installations that you recommended for closure, will the services do that list, or would the analytical teams do that list?
DuBois: It is a combination. As I said, there will be analysis done within each service. Those service secretaries and service chiefs of that particular service will make their recommendations to the Infrastructure Executive Council.
There will also be analysis done on those categories agreed to in -- by the IEC in the cross-service arena, which will be managed by the so-called Infrastructure Steering Group, which are the vice chiefs -- it's chaired by Pete Aldridge -- the vice service chiefs, vice chiefs of services, and the assistant service secretaries for installations and environment, and myself. That -- those cross-service recommendations also go to the IEC, and ultimately the recommendations to the secretary of Defense.
It's a balanced approach. Neither is it all service-oriented, nor is it all, shall we say, OSD-oriented. It's a balanced approach.
But what we're trying to achieve here is a recognition that service-centric military operational decisions -- where tanker aircraft are positioned, where bombers are positioned, where carrier battle groups are stationed, where maneuver training areas for Army divisions -- where they should be -- is really a military decision centric to their respective services.
But areas of laboratories and research and development centers -- I've spoke about the national capital region, which is nonfunctional but clearly, because of the weight -- we have over 100,000 military and civilian employees of the Department of Defense within 50 miles of the White House, not to mention some of the crown jewels of our real estate. And we've got to use them -- use it intelligently.
Yes, sir?
Q: Along these lines, in the past year, 20 to 28 percent of military properties have been deemed excess. If you are now talking about joint service uses and combining some of these bases, would that number increase and how much?
DuBois: The excess capacity statistic, which the secretary and others, including myself, have referred to, is based on a 1998 Capacity Utilization Study. It is true that there is excess capacity in some range of 20 to 25 percent, but that is a clumsy number insofar as it's an aggregate number. If one says we will address all excess capacity and remove it from the inventory, that does not translate to 20 to 25 percent of all installations will close. What it does say is that given the force structure that we have today, and that we can project into the future, do we have more pier space than necessary, and if so, where is that excess capacity of pier space per ship? We may have overcapacity or undercapacity in certain areas, and that's why you have to have an analysis such as this. Do we have enough apron space, hangar space, and runway space for both training and operational deployment?
The 1998 study stated, when you came out at the other end of the analysis, some 20 to 25 percent excess capacity. If we move towards maximized joint use, both here and abroad, I don't know how that impacts the capacity calculation. I do know this; that military value and operational necessity is going to drive these decisions.
Remember that BRAC is not inexpensive. BRAC will probably end up costing the Department of Defense, over a four- to six-year period, depending upon how large the BRAC is, depending upon how much capacity you are reducing, and by definition, how much you're realigning, it could cost $10 billion to $20 billion over that period of time. But what do you get as a result? We believe that with that investment, by 2011, you will have a steady state savings-rate of in excess of $6.5 billion annually. That includes the projected environmental remediation necessary for properties returning to the civilian sector.
Now, a number of members of Congress have called into question savings rates, have called into question cost to complete of environmental remediation. I cannot deny that these are large numbers. But what I can say is the GAO; the Congressional Budget Office; and other outside groups, IDA, CNA, et cetera; have studied the past four BRACs, the cost of investing and achieving those results and the savings that have emanated from those results, and they have confirmed our estimates.
What will happen with the '05 BRAC will be directly related to the extent to which we realign and reconfigure the infrastructure that we have here and abroad.
The important thing to remember, too, is one of the biggest complaints, and it's a legitimate complaint, is when a decision is made to close an installation, it has taken too long to transfer that installation into an economically viable civilian site; that years pass between closure, the military moving off, until there's an economically viable replacement. And we are going to address the disposal issue up front; how to lessen the time between closure, removal of military missions, and the economic redevelopment of that property. It serves no useful purpose to have that time any longer than it needs to be, which means you've got to think ahead, which means that communities which are ultimately impacted would serve themselves well to determine how -- and work with us to how most quickly transition to private sector economic basis -- to a private sector economic basis.
Anyway, yes, sir?
Q: The process that you outlined for how the BRAC decisions would be made here, how the list would be formulated; as a practical matter, does that mean that they're going to be sort of more hands in the pot, so to speak? And could that not make it more difficult in some ways?
DuBois: One of the concerns from the very beginning, voiced to us by members of Congress who have lived through some of the prior BRACs -- and I will say this: Some of the people who voted against us -- they said, "We can only embrace your ultimate decisions, your ultimate recommendations, if military value is indeed the primary selection criterion."
In order to ensure that military judgment was integrated to -- into this process from the very beginning, we believe that there was only one way to do it, and that was to have all the Joint Chiefs, including the chairman and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the vice chiefs of the services, with their civilian counterparts, involved.
Now a management consultant, which I was once, would look at this structure and say it's awfully cumbersome. On the one hand and the other hand, we must ensure that the product given by a process incorporates the best military judgment in this department. There's only one way to do that. There will be a lot of people around the table.
These decisions, these trade-offs -- can you imagine the chief of staff of the Air Force, the chief of staff of the Army, the CNO and the commandant of the Marine Corps addressing some tough decisions about joint use of bases? Should a Marine Corps aviation set of assets exist on an Air Force base? You can quickly go to who's in charge, who's in command of the base. This is, at the very least, modifying some cultural aspects of our services that have been ingrained for many, many years. But it is the time to address it.
So in answer to your question, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but I didn't know any other way to do it, by virtue of what the secretary of Defense is trying to achieve, which is the essential -- essentially, the same amount of infrastructure reduction in four prior BRACs he wants to do in one.
I sometimes feel like Sisyphus. You know, I roll the stone up to the top, and then it comes back down again. (Chuckles.) This is going to be very challenging and yes, very exciting.
Each of the assistant service secretaries for installations and environment -- with whom I meet as a corporate body once a week, and I meet with them individually at least once a week -- has identified a deputy assistant service secretary for BRAC. I don't know if they've been all announced yet. They are some really sharp, capable folks, who, working with my principal deputy, Phil Grone, constitute a brain trust that is quite impressive in terms of their experience. As you know, my principal deputy, Phil Grone, was for many years the deputy staff director of the House Armed Services Committee and specifically the principal -- the staff director of the Military Installations and Facilities Subcommittee. He knows this stuff cold. He has lived through it.
And I think it'll be important, perhaps in April, to come back to you, probably with the assistant service secretaries, and maybe the vice chiefs, and kind of give you a progress report.
The more people you put at the table, the longer it takes; arguably, the more contentious sometimes the discussion, but in my humble estimation, the better the product.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: Do you have a time line? I know you said that you expect to submit this by spring of '05. But what happens between now and then?
DuBois: The secretary, as you know, wrote a kick-off -- so- called kick-off memo on November 15th, outlining the basic structure, decision structure and methodology that - which will form the BRAC process.
Each service secretary, in turn, has published their own memos to dictate to their own services how the individual services will do it. By April 15th, the IEC, upon recommendation from the Infrastructure Steering Group, on which I sit, will decide -- will recommend to the secretary what categories from the beginning should be looked at cross-service and what categories should remain service-centric.
The law says that if you don't -- do not meet the following deadlines, BRAC stops. BRAC stops. One, December '03, the secretary must publish the selection criteria. Notwithstanding that the president of the United States must nominate and the Senate must confirm members to the BRAC commission in early '05, by May -- no later than May 16, 2005, the secretary must make his BRAC recommendations to that commission and to the defense committees on the Hill. If he does not meet that date, BRAC stops.
In September 8th, no later than September 8th, the commission must report to the president of the United States. If they do not meet that date, BRAC stops. The president then must approve or disapprove, in whole but not in part, the commission's recommendations and transmit his decision to the Congress by 23 September. Now, if they are approved, those recommendations are binding, are binding 45 days after the president transmits them to Congress, unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of disapproval.
The interesting wiggle here is that if the president doesn't like what the commission has sent to him, he can send them back to the commission. But then the commission is given less than one month -- 20 October -- to come back to the president with either the same or some modified list of recommendations. The president then, again, accepts or not, in whole, but not in part. If he accepts and it goes -- then goes -- finally then goes to Congress, he has until November 7th, a couple of weeks later, his deadline for approving those revised recommendations and transmitting them to Congress. Which means if it went through that entire process, you might not know until December of 2005. I anticipate, however, that you will know -- that we will know, the world will know, sometime in the end of October of 2005.
The Congress crafted this approach rather skillfully, I think, because it allows them to look at the totality of the recommendations against the force structure of the department, and it protects them individually and corporately from, shall we say, nitpicking the recommendations. They really do have to look at it -- and I think they recognized this because they were the ones who put this construct together -- they look at it now in terms of national security, and not in terms of individual district or state issues.
I will also say that a serious requirement here, that in February of '04 -- and this is why people say, "Why are you starting now? You don't have to make these recommendations until '05" -- important fact, besides the selection criteria the secretary has to put out in December of '03, in February of '04, the secretary has, under the law, some very specific reports that he must deliver to Congress. He must deliver a 24-year force structure plan; he must deliver a world-wide infrastructure inventory; and type of infrastructure necessary to support that force structure plan. He's got to also deliver an economic analysis of the effect on the Department of Defense, with respect to potential closures and realignments in the reduction of excess infrastructure. And this is very important: He must certify that there is a need for BRAC and that there will be annual savings, annual net savings -- annual net savings -- by 2011. Remember, there are savings quickly on in this process, but there are costs in the early part of this process; when you have to build new to realign force structure and missions from one base to another.
But as that new military footprint construction falls off in year three, the savings that you have built up, and continue to build up, get higher and higher -- there's a cross-over point. The cross- over point, the secretary must certify the cross-over point will be no later than 2011.
Now, some of this occurred and appeared in the prior BRAC legislation, some of it didn't. Has a greater burden of proof been placed upon the secretary? Yes. Is he worried about it? No. Will this require a lot of tough decisions and hard bargaining? Yes. Will you be very interested in what's going on over the next two years? Certainly. Will there be an upmost of discretion emanating from these efforts? I hope so.
Q: First question. Who is on the commission -- who is on the BRAC commission?
DuBois: The present? -- I mean, the BRAC commission doesn't come into existence until February -- January, February of '05.
Q: But specifically who would select the members for that?
DuBois: Ah. The law this year calls for nine members. The president -- let me see if I get this straight -- the speaker of the House -- sort of like the 9/11 commission -- the speaker of the House gets two, the minority leader of the House gets one, recommends to the president because he in turn nominates to the Senate. The majority leader of the Senate gets two, the minority leader of the Senate gets one. That's six. Three are within the purview of the president, for nine. The president appoints the chairman. Those nine nominees will go to the Senate; the Senate will confirm.
Q: Which installations are most vulnerable to closing at this point? Do you know?
DuBois: All installations are going to be judged equally. All installations will be required to provide data, the so-called data call. There is no way to approach this -- you know, as the secretary said, you wake up in the morning, and you don't say, "Let's do a BRAC this year." You must approach this in a comprehensive and objective fashion. All installations are on the table.
Q: Do you have an estimate of how much it will cost to do the environmental cleanup of a large BRAC round?
DuBois: Remember that the environmental remediation bill is driven by what you're going to use the land for. If you have a former -- as was the case in prior BRACs -- shipyard, does it make sense to the American taxpayer to remediate that shipyard to build a child day- care center on? I would submit that doesn't make very much sense because the cost would be enormous, presuming you could even do it, on the one hand. On the other hand, cost to complete the four prior BRACs is now, in terms of environmental remediation on the basis of the proposed use of the land, is 3-plus billion dollars, I think, is the current cost-to-complete number.
Why does this number -- and this is what I found very interesting when I got into this job, now 18, 20 months ago. I looked at the cost-to-complete projection year by year. And because we spend several hundred million dollars every year to remediate BRAC properties environmentally, you would have thought that you would have seen a nice stepped function where it goes down every year by the same amount of money that was appropriated to deal with it every year. Not true, because land use decisions change year to year.
When the local redevelopment authority decides that they want to use land for parks that has unexploded ordnance on it, that was a former gunnery range, and if that is the agreed-upon use of the land -- remember what it said, agreed-upon use of the land, the recorded decision negotiated between the local redevelopment authority and the Department of the Army -- if one were to say, "Let's create a playground on a former gunnery range," first of all we would say that's an awfully expensive use of that piece of property; you really ought to use the property over here on this installation for the playground; maybe what we ought to do is to fence off the gunnery range and create, by definition, critical habitat for endangered species but not have human beings wander around on it or build a condominium on it -- point being, land use drives cost, and smart land use -- open space, critical habitat, environmental management areas, vice industrial parks -- should -- and a shipyard -- be used as a shipyard? Imagine, if you will, the hypothetical that we closed -- and we did, in the four prior BRACs -- a shipyard, and it is now used as a shipyard. The environmental cleanup is minimal. See the point I'm making?
Q: So DOD will have a say into what the reuse of the land will be?
DuBois: DOD has a say now, insofar as we negotiate with local land -- local redevelopment authorities. Remember, their incentive is not to stretch this thing out; their incentive is to transist that prior military-owned and operated property into something that's economically viable for the community. For them to suggest that -- for a local redevelopment authority to suggest that their desire to use the land for Purpose A requires an enormous environmental cleanup bill, which Congress is not necessarily in the mood to appropriate, only extends the time to some form of environmental -- economic redevelopment.
So local redevelopment authorities are smart enough to recognize that their objective is to use the land smartly and try to use it in ways that it was used prior so that it doesn't require an enormous amount of time and money for environmental remediation. Let me make one point very clear, however. Whether it's BRAC properties, formerly used defense sites, or current operational installations and training and test ranges, if at any time, if at any time there is determined to be an environmental situation that will impact human health and safety, the department will redress it immediately, even if it means reprogramming dollars from one account to another.
Example, Spring Valley(Washington, DC), where I grew up as a kid. They had no idea what was there. Now that we do, the Army has reprogrammed $50 million or $60 million in just the last year alone to address the situation, which was, as Secretary Rumsfeld likes to say, an unknown unknown. But when it became known, we addressed it.
Yes, sir?
Q: Land use is not the only thing driving costs here. Specifically for '04, many people I'm in contact with are worried about an impact upon environmental spending from the war on terrorism.
DuBois: I want to probe that a little bit, and let me answer it this way, and you tell me whether I'm getting close to what you need. The FY '03 request to the president for our environmental programs in the Department of Defense was in excess of the FY '02. It was over $4.1 billion. The FY '04 environmental program request will be no less.
Q: Than '03?
DuBois: Than '03. The focus on environmental programs, which encompasses everything from environmental cleanup, pollution prevention and control, conservation programs, research and development, which, you know, here we're talking $4.1 billion -- that's a lot of money -- but out of that, it may not sound very much, but when you start spending $60 million, $70 million, $80 million on research and development alone to how to identify, characterize and remove unexploded ordnance on formerly used Defense sites, we hope that that will yield a less expensive way to deal with these situations, therefore, driving down the costs, ultimately, over the next decade.
I like to refer to that. People forget that the Defense Department is one, if not the biggest, investor in these kinds of R&D efforts in the world. We have a good reason to do so because, yes, we hope that some of these new technologies under development will help us reduce the environmental situations in various -- on various installations, formerly used installations, at a faster and less expensive cost. So we have an incentive to do that.
Q: But, SERDP an ESTCP, the two research arms at DOD, were both cut this year.
DuBois: The '03 versus '02?
Q: Yes.
DuBois: Remember that the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) are OSD accounts. There's also research and development being driven and funded by the individual services, military departments. I'll take it for the record to determine exactly what the year to year investments have been in toto, not just SERDP or ESTCP, because I think we have to look at the total picture. But you raise an important issue, and I'll look into that.
Yes, sir?
Q: If I can go back to when you mentioned before about military construction, as it relates to the '04 budget; and as in the past couple of years, we've seen a little bit of a tug of war between the Hill and the Pentagon over MILCON, would you expect to come back again this year and try to sort of put the brakes on, even though that may well be a futile effort?
DuBois: I think that's -- "putting the brakes on" certainly wouldn't be a term that we would use. As I indicated, there is a delicate balancing act every year, between what one spends in the MILCON -- remember, there are five major accounts, and that doesn't mean -- certainly, I had to explain this to my wife the other night, and it helped me understand, too, and some of my friends -- the five major accounts are always in competition, whether it's research and development, procurement, personnel, MILCON, acquisition.
We believe that this year, we will ask for MILCON that will sustain the facilities at the appropriate level -- I think our corporate sustainment rate is 93 percent, that we're trying to achieve; that we'll take into consideration new footprint construction for mission-critical requirements in fighting the global war on terrorism; and we'll also recapitalize -- with our goal being a 67- year recapitalization rate, we're not achieving it yet, within the 2010 time frame.
How -- and this is the big question mark and one which no one is equipped to answer and then translate into a calculation -- is how much of our excess infrastructure, how much of our real property assets will, in point of fact, be reduced through the BRAC process?
There will always be stranded investments. There have been in the past, and there will be in this BRAC. Why? Because I cannot predict what the services and ultimately the secretary of Defense will agree upon in terms of base closure and realignment.
What we have to do now, however, is to sustain and recapitalize infrastructure where it's most necessary and where it's directly related to mission-critical requirements.
There will be, inevitably, by virtue of that approach, stranded investments somewhere. But I think you can understand we can't -- I can't say, "Okay, 20, 25 percent -- then we'll just cut the MILCON spending by 20, 25 percent." That's not responsible.
I'm going to go here in a few minutes, if there's anything else. But I look forward to talking to you again, and thank you very much.
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Navy, Marine Corps Eye More Joint Bases
December 18, 2002
By George Cahlink


The Navy and Marine Corps are likely to combine common operations at joint military bases as part of the 2005 round of military base closures.
The Defense Department has indicated that the upcoming round of the base realignment and closure (BRAC) process will put more emphasis on creating multimission, multiservice bases than there has been in previous rounds. Anne Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for infrastructure and analysis, told Government Executive that over the past decade, she said, military services have increasingly fought together, but have not yet learned to share infrastructure.
"We probably did not do everything we could have done in prior rounds," said Davis, who helped manage BRAC for the Navy in the early and mid-1990s, and will head the department's efforts in 2005.
In November, the Pentagon issued broad guidelines for the next BRAC that gives the Office of the Secretary of Defense a greater role in deciding what bases will be closed and realigned. In the past, the military services have taken the lead in making decisions about the future of bases, often shying away from creating joint bases. But Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, has said a new generation of joint bases must emerge after BRAC 2005 because they offer more efficient operations at a lower cost.
In a Nov. 25 memorandum, Navy Secretary Gordon England told senior Navy and Marine Corps officials that one of the goals for BRAC 2005 would be "to examine and implement opportunities for greater joint activity." England established two internal Navy organizations to oversee BRAC. An Infrastructure Evaluation Group (IEG), chaired by the assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and environment and including flag and general officers from the Navy and Marine Corps, will make recommendations to close and realign Navy bases. Meanwhile, an Infrastructure Analysis Team, chaired by Davis and staffed by Navy personnel assigned full-time to BRAC, will support the IEG with analysis-including "developing joint and cross-servicing opportunities," England's memo stated.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense will review all the Navy's recommendations, along with those from the other services. By spring 2005, the Pentagon will present those recommendations to a bipartisan BRAC panel, appointed by Congress, that will hold hearings on them come up with a final list by fall for congressional and presidential approval. Lawmakers and the president must then except or reject the list in its entirety.
Davis says it's crucial that the services consider joint basing and communicate with one another early in the BRAC process. "Each of the services had their own little horror stories [in past BRACs] where we didn't realize until literally the recommendations went forward to [the Defense Secretary's office] that we were taking an action someplace that might have an impact on one of the other services and we just didn't know it," she said.
For example, the Navy did not realize the Air Force was consolidating operations at Langley Air Force Base in Southern Virginia, while at the same time the Navy was moving more personnel into neighboring Hampton Roads, Va. "Had we known everyone was piling into the Hampton Roads area we might have considered a couple of other options or alternatives. I don't know that would have changed anything, but we never gave ourselves a chance to have those discussions," Davis said.
Davis said she expects the Pentagon to define "joint basing" within the next year. Currently, she said, the Navy's only joint bases are in its reserve component. The organizations at those sites do not have combined common operations or functions, but only share space, such as runways and office buildings. The next BRAC round could provide the services a chance to decide how to consolidate common functions at joint bases, she said.
In BRAC 1995, the services considered joint basing requirements in five areas-depots, test and evaluation facilities, medical facilities, research laboratories and undergraduate pilot training schools. But few joint bases resulted from the review due to a lack of coordination among the services. However, Davis said, those areas are ripe for review in 2005, but she added the discussion is "wide open" and the Office of the Secretary of Defense will likely come up with other joint basing requirements.


 

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Travis gets new big movers

By Ian Thompson

TRAVIS AFB -- Travis Air Force Base will get its 12 C-17 Globemaster III jet transports in 2007, Solano County's Congressional delegation announced Monday.

The base will begin to lose 16 of its older C-5 Galaxy jet transports between 2005 and 2008, according to the briefing Air Force officials gave House and Senate Armed Services Committee staff.

Once these shifts are finished, Travis AFB will end up with a net three more officer positions, but lose 408 enlisted and 15 civilian positions.

The staffing changes are mainly because the C-17 requires less maintenance and has a smaller aircrew than the C-5.

The base also will get $156 million in military construction funding to support the C-17s' arrival. That money will help pay for constructing new buildings for the C-17, as well as modifying runways and hangars.

The proposed moves are part of the Air Force's Strategic Airlift Roadmap, a 20-year plan for the Air Force's airlift needs.

Staffing and construction funding details were missing from last week's word that the Air Force planned to station the 12 C-17s at Travis AFB, but also gradually withdraw 16 older C-5s.

Travis AFB is one of three California bases that can expect to see changes in the type and number of aircraft assigned to it, according to the briefing which included staff of Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.

March Air Reserve Base in Southern California will get eight C-17s and eight KC-130s for its reserve airlift and air refueling squadrons while losing 16 C-141 Starlifter jet transports - half in 2004 and half in 2005. March will also lose two of its present KC-135R air tankers.

The base will get two C-17s in 2005 with the rest arriving in 2006. It also will receive $63 million in military construction funding for its C-17s and KC-1302s.

The Channel Islands Air Force Base is getting eight C-130Js between 2002 and 2007.

Dover AFB, Del., the main East Coast air mobility base, is also expected to get a squadron of C-17s and KC-130s, according to Monday's briefing.

Air Force officials at both the Pentagon and Air Mobility Command said the proposed moves announced during Monday's briefing are tentative and have not yet received official blessing.

For Travis AFB, the C17s are going to be delivered in 2007, barring any changes.

All this is contingent on an approved 2002 budget that includes building a 180-aircraft C-17 fleet, Tauscher staffers said.

The 16 C-5s, the older of the base's Galaxies, will gradually disappear in 2005 and will continue to be phased out until 2008. These aircraft will be shifted to units stationed at Memphis International Airport, Tenn., and Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport near Martinsburg, W.Va.

Travis AFB presently has two active-duty and two Air Force Reserve squadrons with 32 C-5s allocated to them, but has 37 C-5s assigned here.

The C-5s that remain at Travis AFB will be fully modernized with new avionics systems and engines, according to Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Solano.

Fairfield has lobbied for years to get the C-17s located at Travis AFB, contending the Globemasters will help ensure Travis AFB doesn't suffer when the 2005 base closure round arrives.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.

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Local laws can help spare military land areas

Suzanne Struglinski, Land Letter staff writer

Growing communities near military installations should take such facilities into consideration as they plan future land-use projects and growth patterns, according to a National Governors Association report. In fact, a top Pentagon official this week said communities who fail to do so could decrease the facilities' value, making it a prime target for closure in 2005.

The Defense Department made clear its concerns of effects the encroachment environmental laws have on military training earlier this year when it requested changes to the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the name of military readiness (Land Letter, Oct. 17). The proposed changes in the Defense Authorization bill H.R. 4546 still hang in the balance, since action on the conference report will not continue until the lame duck session starts in mid-November.

The attention now shifts from federal encroachment problems to more local ones since the military also struggles with growing cities that move homes and businesses closer to its once-isolated areas. DOD insists that urban encroachment, coupled with land-use limitations put in place by environmental laws, can adversely affect military training and readiness, especially as fighting continues in Afghanistan and the United Nations debates what to do in Iraq.

According to several sources, Raymond F. DuBois Jr., deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, said earlier this week that if a community does not address urban encroachment issues the military value of the installation would be lower since training opportunities would continued to be threatened. The lower the value of a base, the higher possibility it has to be closed. DOD anticipates another round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) decisions in 2005, although specific criteria has not been set, a Pentagon source said.

In a report released earlier this month, the NGA noted that military facilities often contribute a great deal to a community's economic health, so it is in the states' or cities' best interest to work to make compatible land use plans around the bases or other military facilities to avoid a possible relocation or closure.

The NGA says development near military facilities not only affects the military's ability to carry out missions, but also can be a threat to public safety due to the nature of actions that take place on installations.

"The most effective approach is to anticipate future urban growth patterns and create a strategic land-use plan with accompanying implementation and enforcement mechanisms that prevent encroachment near our nation's military installations," the NGA said.

The report points to several states that have passed laws creating "high noise and potential accident zones" near military lands or developed specific zoning codes to limit certain types of development in such areas.

For example, California state Sen. Wm. J. "Pete" Knight (R) sponsored Senate Bill 1468 that requires cities and counties to consider the impact urban growth may have on military readiness activities. Knight's district, the largest in the state, includes Edwards Air Force Base and the former George Air Force Base, which closed about seven years ago.

Knight's Communication Director David Orosco said the law means local governments will have to consider the military's opinion if land use plans could impact any portion of land or even airspace around the base. Orosco said environmental restrictions were not specifically an impetus in moving the legislation, but rather the chance that bases could be targeted for closure if not taken into consideration during community planning stages.

The law also requires California's Office of Planning and Research to create a handbook to provide technical guidelines for cities and counties to minimize the impact of planning decisions on military activities. The OPR would also develop guidelines to encourage proactive measures in the planning process, such as getting military input on proposed plans and zoning ordinances and securing collaboration between local jurisdictions and military officials to develop adjacent military and civilian lands, according to Knight's office.

California has 36 major military bases open, but the state lost nearly half of its original 64 bases through several BRAC processes. This cost California close to $30 billion in military spending and 120,000 defense-related jobs, Knight's office said.

The bill passed both chambers of the California legislature with no opposition. The law will take affect on Jan. 1, 2003.

Steve Taylor, national organizer for the Military Toxics Project supported the NGA's stance, saying community organizations in neighborhoods affected by military contamination and pollution have advocated for the need for buffer zones around bases for some time. He said NGA's recommendations serve as a good starting point, but should not end there.

"Any discussion of the relationship between a military base and its host community must start from an honest assessment of the physical, environmental and economic costs of the base to the community," Taylor said. "While military installations may bring economic benefits to communities, they also bring economic costs in the form of poisoned water and land, increased health care costs, lost work days, and other factors. A real and fair assessment of the role of military installations must include not only benefits but also costs."

 

 

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America's first choice

Coalition doing right thing to keep base

By Lara Rohr/Reporter Staff

Solano County's population growth is just one factor among many that could affect the future of Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield - whether it could help or hinder the base remains to be seen.

There has been concern in recent years that Travis may fall prey to a federal process called Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC. The process is supposed to trim federal infrastructure costs by shutting down military bases that, for whatever reason, are no longer considered viable.

 

Another round of BRAC is due to come down the pike around 2005, and Solano County and its cities have joined in the effort to keep Travis off that list.

So far, so good, said Capt. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for the base. He said the coalition has done exactly the right thing in hiring Washington, D.C., lobbyist Paul Hirsch of Madison Government Affairs to campaign on its behalf. In the end, it will not depend on any one thing, Sholtis said.

"On the one side of growth, you've got encroachment and air-space issues," he said. "On the other side of growth, you've got affordability issues for housing. ... I don't want to get all Zen on this, but the sanest approach is to try and achieve some sort of balance.

"Do the things that the cities are doing - talk to your congressional delegation, visit D.C., have some expertise on your side to evaluate what's going on and come up with a plan that balances all of those factors that go into it."

Hirsch and two of his colleagues, retired military men Carl Franklin of International Falcon Associates and Nordie Norwood of Norwood and Associates, feel that Travis has a decent chance of remaining open. They sounded an optimistic but cautious note at a recent meeting with city, county and economic development officials.

"Travis is a great base with a great mission that's very important to the United States of America," Norwood said. "We've got lots of opinions, but opinion isn't what's going to save the day."

"Obviously, we agree that Travis is very, very important," Franklin said.

But sometimes that isn't enough, he said, adding later: "I certainly have seen, and (Norwood and Hirsch) have seen, bases that have closed in spite of having a viable mission."

It is possible that Travis' mission could change after the BRAC lists come down, Sholtis said. Officials take into account which bases could absorb the extra personnel, equipment and assignments if other bases were to close. If Travis is better able to take over some of the things for closed bases, he said, it could be in a better position to remain open.

Sholtis said the Department of Defense probably will always house most of its military personnel off-base. That is where population growth in the region could actually come in handy, he said, by ensuring that there will be new home construction.

"Now there's an instance where, if you have too little growth in the sense that you're not building to meet the demand for housing of people who want to move here, then that drives the price of housing up out of the reach of military folks," he said.

As for the other side of growth, the encroachment issues, he said: "You can make a convincing argument for either case when it comes to growth. We don't have an encroachment problem at Travis because the city and the county have done a very good job of zoning so that we have the space that we need."

Lara Rohr can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

 

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September 17, 2002
Travis proposals garner approval

By Ian Thompson

TRAVIS AFB - The report recommending ways to improve Travis Air Force Base got a largely supportive reception from the Travis Regional Armed Forces Committee Monday.

The only questions from committee members involved speeding up efforts to create more affordable off-base housing for Travis AFB military members. That included promoting privatization efforts that would have the private sector build and/or manage housing for the military

An overview on the recently released Travis Enhancement Report was presented to the committee less than a week after the first copies landed in Fairfield officials' hands, the lead agency on the report's creation.

The report was funded by a consortium of Solano County's seven cities, the county, Solano Community College and the Solano County Economic Development Corporation.

The goal was to find the base's weak areas and ensure the base doesn't end up on an expected 2005 base closure list.

Two of its creators, Paul Hirsch of Madison Government Affairs and retired Lt. Gen. Carl Franklin, laid out the main points with the first one being everyone in the area has to speak with the same voice on what Travis AFB needs.

"It makes it easier for them to accomplish your agenda," Hirsh said.

If the consortium wants to get government help to build more military housing, it better deal with the present Department of Defense analysis that states the area already has enough affordable housing.

"The crux of the matter is getting the (housing) model right," Franklin said, noting the present model doesn't reflect the incomes of people who live here but commute to work outside the county.

Recommendations included:

-- Lobbying to modernize the C-5 Galaxy jet transport fleet and getting more C-17 Globemasters assigned to the base.

-- Keeping the base's aerial port facilities viable.

-- Limiting encroachment of the base by development.

-- Providing alternative transportation modes such as railroad to the base.

As for what will happen to the report, local governments' staff are expected to meet with Madison Government Affairs staff to work out how best to push forward with the recommendations.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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October 22, 2002
Military depots can’t tell how much work they outsource

By George Cahlink
gcahlink@govexec.com


Military depots do a poor job of tracking how much work they outsource, according to a new General Accounting Office report.


Depots are required to annually track how much of their work is contracted out to private firms. Those figures are critical because a federal law, commonly called the 50-50 requirement, prohibits depots from outsourcing more than half of their work. But it is unclear whether depots are meeting that requirement, GAO found.


“While DoD showed the Army and Navy departments to be below the 50 percent funding limitation on private-sector workloads and the Air Force to be above it, continuing weaknesses in DoD’s data gathering and reporting processes prevented us from determining with precision whether the services were in compliance with the 50-50 requirement,” according to the report (GAO-03-16). GAO studied the services’ reports for depot workloads in 2000 and 2001.


GAO found the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all made substantial errors in reporting the amount of work they outsource at depots and the amount of work carried out by federal workers. For example:


The Army overstated by about $400 million public and private work done at depots in 2000 and 2001 because of transcription errors.


The Navy failed to report $200 million in repair work done by both depots and contractors in 2001.


The Marine Corps, whose data is counted with the Navy’s, overstated public and private depot work by about $25 million.


The Air Force double-counted some in-house repair work, failed to report some infrastructure improvements to depots made by contractors and undercounted the number of contractors working temporarily at depots.

GAO found that based on more accurate calculations the Navy would have breached the 50-50 threshold in 2000 and 2001, while the Air Force, which already had violated the 50-50 requirement, would have further exceeded it. The Army would still have met the requirements of the law, auditors said.


GAO said that there are “abundant opportunities” to improve the 50-50 reporting process and results, but found “priority and emphasis from top management seems to be flagging.” Nonetheless, GAO recommended that service managers issue new guidance for depot reporting, tighten management controls and also improve internal auditing of depots.

 

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Calderon says Navy commits to leaving Vieques by 2003
Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon (D) said last week the Navy issued a new commitment to stop its aerial bombing practice on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island.

Environmentalists say the Navy's aerial bombing practices endanger marine life and air quality. Studies by Puerto Rican researchers have found high levels of heavy metals in crabs, plants and human hair. And in 1999, two off-target bombs killed a civilian guard on the range. But the Navy disputes the findings and says its operations on the island are vital for national defense and cannot be carried out elsewhere (Greenwire, June 14, 2001).

"With profound happiness and satisfaction I want to inform the people of Puerto Rico that the government of the United States has confirmed to me officially today the determination to conclude the Navy practice on the island of Vieques by May 2003 at the latest," Calderon said. "The transition process will be reconfirmed in writing shortly."

The announcement, which the Navy did not confirm, does not seem to offer any new information. The Bush administration had already pledged to move the bombing practices to another location by 2003.

The Navy has not selected an alternate aerial bombing site but plans to spend $158 million to improve several Gulf Coast facilities that could be used in place of Vieques (Matthew Hay Brown, Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 19).

 

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For the U.S. Military, A Transforming View From the Maginot Line
By Vernon Loeb
Sunday, October 6, 2002; Page B02

BOUILLON, Belgium

 

In the dense Ardennes forest, where the Germans began their daring blitzkrieg invasion of France, Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs arrived one afternoon last month in search of answers.

The four-star commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe seemed puzzled by what had happened here in May 1940, when the Germans, having learned from their defeat in World War I, punched through this forbidding terrain, crossed two rivers, maneuvered around the supposedly "impenetrable" Maginot line and knocked France out of World War II in just six weeks.

"Why does the loser learn quicker and better than the winner?" Meigs asked as we began a drive along the Semois River, which elements of Germany's XIX Panzer Corps forded on their way through Belgium. "You've got to think about this. Because, right now, the American military is the winner. And how do we not let [what happened here] happen to us?"

Meigs was leading a group that included two dozen of his subordinates, myself and a handful of generals from Germany, Russia and Britain on what the Army calls a "staff ride," a century-old teaching device that lets up-and-coming commanders walk historic battlefields, study the terrain and ponder the decisions taken by the great and not-so-great generals of the past.

His questions also carried a subtext, questioning the latest Pentagon obsession -- military "transformation," which President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld promise will finish turning a supposedly plodding industrial-age military into a nimble information-age force. Bush's faith in transformation is based on the belief that the U.S. military is in the midst of an "RMA," or "revolution in military affairs." That idea, associated most closely with Andrew Marshall, the director of the Pentagon's in-house think tank, suggests that emerging technologies and new concepts periodically change the nature of war and produce dramatic gains in military effectiveness. This belief is guiding the Pentagon's plans for future acquisitions. Some people worry that it's also feeding overconfidence about U.S. fighting capabilities in the event of a war with Iraq.

The Ardennes forest offers a powerful lens for viewing the transformation debate because the blitzkrieg occupies a special place in RMA theory. If the United States is in the midst of the third and last RMA of the 20th century, built upon precision, stealth and high-speed data, the German blitzkrieg is generally considered the first. RMA theorists believe that the Germans fused new tactics and emerging technologies -- the internal combustion engine, the radio, the mounted machine gun and improved aircraft design -- to produce a highly mobile style of warfare that left the French, hunkered down along the Maginot line and other defensive perimeters, simply unable to cope.

Meigs is a skeptic. He doesn't subscribe to the theory that there are periodic "revolutions in military affairs." And he is downright dubious about the idea that the U.S. military must either radically "transform" itself with "skip-a-generation" technologies -- to use Bush's phrase -- or risk meeting the same fate as the French.

"Transformation," Meigs believes, has become an ideology in a Pentagon where dissenters are not particularly welcome, even though this "transformed" future force has never been clearly defined and the amount of money needed to create it could jeopardize highly effective current capabilities. He describes the prevailing Pentagon mood like this: They say, "There's an RMA [underway], we're going to use it to transform the military, and anybody who disagrees with us is a Luddite."

Meigs is no Luddite. He has embraced technology, but he's also developed innovative ways to rapidly deploy heavy tank and armored units left over from the Cold War in a world where far-flung contingencies have become an everyday fact of life. "We ought to leverage what's changed and realize what hasn't," Meigs told me. "The new technology is not a panacea. There's still no silver bullet. What wins or loses is your ability to shatter the will of your opponent -- that's how you win wars."

Indeed, the paradoxical lesson of traipsing through the Ardennes for three days was that human factors -- leadership, tactics, training and discipline -- were the keys to success for the XIX Panzer Corps under Gen. Heinz Guderian as it sliced through the Ardennes in Belgium, crossed the Meuse River at Sedan, and pushed deep into France between the Maginot line to the south and the main French force to the north.

According to blitzkrieg mythology -- the invention of Nazi propagandists after France fell -- German technology (better tanks and airpower) were the keys to victory. In fact, it was old-fashioned German foot soldiers who fought their way across the Meuse so the tanks could follow. They took advantage of an autocratic French leadership, which based its static strategy on defensive perimeters, not rapid maneuver. The Germans actually did not hold much of a technological edge. The French had superior tanks in greater numbers and battlefield materiel that was roughly equivalent.

Indeed, it can be argued that the French fell victim to faith in technology, believing that the Maginot line would protect France's eastern border with Germany, while the forest, ravines and rivers of the Ardennes to the north would be a natural barrier. The Maginot line was the ultimate in military high-tech, with tunnels linking networks of armored bunkers and command centers. Though wildly expensive and still incomplete at the time of the German assault, it was considered impregnable -- until Guderian went around it.

Led by three military historians, Meigs's staff ride stopped at the crest of a hill to survey the ruins of a cast-iron fortress that was once the Maginot line's northernmost outpost. "This is a combination of what [World War II Gen. George S.] Patton called the false security of the fortress -- and a misapplication of technology," Meigs said, standing atop the devastated structure, which was overrun by German infantry.

Meigs has a compelling background, lending pedigree, if not weight, to his views. His great-great-uncle, another Maj. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, was Lincoln's quartermaster general during the Civil War and is credited with transforming a small, disorganized force into a large, well-organized war-fighting machine. His father, Lt. Col. Montgomery C. Meigs, was killed in France at the age of 24 on Dec. 11, 1944, commanding a tank battalion in the Lorraine region.

Meigs was born a month later in Annapolis. He graduated from West Point in 1967 and commanded an armored cavalry unit in Vietnam. In the early 1980s, he taught history at West Point. With a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin, Meigs could have become an Army intellectual and served in senior staff jobs at the Pentagon and the National Security Council.

Instead, he took over an armored cavalry regiment in 1984. By 1991, he was a colonel leading the 1st Armored Division's 2nd Brigade across the Iraqi desert. There, above the northwest corner of Kuwait, his brigade stumbled upon the Iraqi Madinah Division's 2nd Brigade, the last significant formation Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's military would field during the Gulf War. Meigs gave the order to fire, and 166 American M1A1 tanks destroyed 60 Iraqi T-72 tanks and dozens of personnel carriers in 40 minutes.

"I was just doing my job -- doing what I was trained to do," he said. Meigs considers his later command of the 1st Infantry Division and NATO's peacekeeping mission in the northern sector of Bosnia in 1996 and 1997 far more "abstract and difficult." Who would ever have thought, he said, that an armored unit built to stop the Soviets at the Fulda Gap could perform a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans?

That's one reason he has reservations about transformation. RMA theorists disparage the Army's so-called "legacy" forces, which Meigs says remain highly effective, particularly in the mountains of Afghanistan or the cities of Iraq, where precision strike capabilities are limited. "How much of that total capability are you willing to throw out to optimize precision strike [capability]?" Meigs asked, noting that it is impossible for Pentagon planners to predict who the nation's adversaries will be -- and what capabilities will be needed to fight them -- five or 10 years from now. A high-tech future military could be vulnerable to countermeasures and new tactics, he said, pointing out the Serbs' success in hiding and protecting their armor in Kosovo throughout the 78 days of NATO airstrikes in 1999.

"Combat and peacekeeping operations always involve risk of failure," Meigs wrote in a recent essay on the four qualities required of Army generals -- force of intellect, energy, selflessness and basic humanity. "Despite the best plans and the best training, the outcome is always subject to random factors and to error and is in doubt. The difference between winning and not winning lies often in the faith of the unit in their leader and in the ability together to persevere through the last final push that breaks enemies' will."

And that's part of the lesson I took away from my ride with Meigs. The revolution in military affairs that took place in the Ardennes was a revolution in thinking. While both sides shared new motorized tank technology, only Germany applied it with determination and innovative maneuvers to create a new way of fighting.

What does that mean for today's U.S. military? The American video-guided bombs that flew down ventilator shafts in the Persian Gulf War and the unmanned Predator drones that fired anti-tank missiles at fleeing al Qaeda leaders in four-wheel drives in Afghanistan made the saturation bombing of World War II and carpet-bombing of Vietnam look like World War I trench warfare. But how America's new technologies are applied remains critical. The single biggest mistake made by U.S. commanders in the Afghan war came in December, when they used air power to bomb the caves at Tora Bora but didn't use U.S. forces to block the escape routes into Pakistan -- and hundreds of al Qaeda fighters, and possibly Osama bin Laden himself, got away.

When revolutionary changes do happen, they flow as much from leadership and creativity as from silver bullet, "leap ahead" technologies, maybe even more. As one of Meigs's aides put it, with an eye squarely on a possible invasion of Iraq: "We may never need a tank again -- until next month." While precision strikes have changed warfare -- and hold great promise -- winning wars in the future will probably still require some old-fashioned military tools and, yes, putting American boots on the ground.

Vernon Loeb covers the Pentagon for The Post.


© 2002 The Washington Post Company

 

 

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NN officials applaud reservoir reversal

By Fred Carroll
Daily Press

October 2, 2002, 2:57 PM EDT

NEWPORT NEWS -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t actually give Newport News a permit to build a massive 1,500-acre reservoir, but ...

It agreed with Newport News that the Peninsula needs the water a 12.2-billion gallon reservoir in King William County would supply.

Earlier, it found the risk of future water shortages too low to justify construction.

It agreed that Newport News limited the reservoir’s environmentally destructive impact as much as possible, and that the reservoir promised to save several thousand acres of woodlands and water bottoms from development.

Earlier, it found that construction would cause irreversible and irretrievable loss of wetlands and wildlife habitat.

It agreed that the reservoir offered the most practicable, predictable way of supplying water.

Earlier, it found that Newport News had failed to show sufficient need for the reservoir and suggested alternative ways to supply water.

Point by point, Brig. Gen. M. Stephen Rhoades reversed on Tuesday the Army corps long-standing opposition to building a reservoir. Rhoades commands the Army corps’ division office in New York.

Col. Allan Carroll, who once headed the corps’ district office in Norfolk, had recommended denying a permit.

Rhoades will make the Army corps final decision on the permit because Gov. Jim Gilmore wrote a letter of support in June 1999 -- four days after Carroll indicated his opposition to the project.

Newport News officials see the reversal as vindication coming on the heels of increasingly bitter disputes with district officials in Norfolk.

Environmentalists and other reservoir opponents see the reversal as politics-as-usual.

“It sounds like we’re back to the same old business of the corps,” said Kay Slaughter, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “In the past, the corps has generally approved projects like this.”

In a 38-page memo, Rhoades wrote that the reservoir "is the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative to meet the public need."

"If this isn't a home run," Newport News Mayor Joe Frank said Tuesday, "it's certainly a real strong triple."

Before making a final decision, Rhoades wants:


Newport News to update its plan to replace destroyed wetlands,


The state to decide whether the reservoir satisfies coastal-protection laws, and


A trio of agencies to agree on a plan to preserve historic artifacts and to try to reach a settlement with neighboring Indian tribes.

Rhoades expects to make a final decision as quickly as possible. He will accept no more public comment. He named a division official as project manager instead of referring the work to the Norfolk regional office.

"This is about the best we could expect at this time," said Randy Hildebrandt, an assistant city manager.

City officials expected Rhoades to ask them to update and finish plans before giving his final decision.

If built, the reservoir would flood a 1,500-acre wooded valley with water from the Mattaponi River.

Newport News Waterworks -- which serves 400,000 customers -- has led efforts to build the huge reservoir since a group of local communities decided in 1993 that the reservoir was the most cost-effective and efficient way to satisfy future water needs.

Waterworks has spent about $18 million seeking permits. Opponents have filed a lawsuit to revoke another permit given by a state board in 1997.

The reservoir has pitted local officials and business representatives against environmentalists and tribal leaders of the Mattaponi, Upper Mattaponi and Pamunkey Indians.

Environmentalists had applauded the Army corps' earlier recommendations. They expressed disappointment with the latest decision, questioning Rhoades' reliance on Newport News' figures and dismissal of conflicting studies about the amount of water that the Peninsula would need.

"We look at this as a political decision," said Glen Besa, past director of the state Sierra Club chapter. "The facts and the people are against the reservoir."

Political clout set the stage for Rhoades' review.

In 1999, then-Gov. Gilmore triggered a seldom-used Army corps regulation with a letter of support for the reservoir. That letter took the decision away from Carroll, then the top officer at the Norfolk regional office, and gave it to Rhoades.

On Tuesday, Frank praised several leading lawmakers for supporting the reservoir, particularly Virginia U.S. Sen. John Warner.

"When the process is allowed to resume," Warner said in a written statement, "I am confident that this worthwhile project will stand on its own merits."

Kay Slaughter, the Southern Environmental Law Center attorney, said the memo outlined how Newport News should go about obtaining the permit that it needed. Ultimately, she expects the Army corps to give the permit.

"After that," she said, "we'll have to decide what to do from there."

Fred Carroll can be reached at 247-4756 or by e-mail at fcarroll@dailypress.com
Copyright © 2002, Daily Press

 

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Bateman's legacy
Congressman's work wasn't always in public

October 2 2002

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

That the line has become a standard gag says much about the hard road many people go down when they try to wring from government bureaucracies the services or even courtesy to which they think they're entitled. James Lyerly was among them.

The subject of a Daily Press series last month, Lyerly believed he had been betrayed by his government on two counts. First, it exposed him and other so-called Atomic Vets to radiation during nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Then it refused to admit that his mounting health problems were caused by exposure to radiation or to give him the medical and financial benefits he needed.

The late congressman Herbert Bateman had a better take on that gag line. His version: "I am the government, and I'm here to make sure they help you."

Bateman accomplished something Lyerly hadn't been able to in more than 30 years of pleading with the Veterans Administration: Bateman got them to help. He might not have claimed credit, but Lyerly says it's due to Bateman's intervention that the VA finally, four decades after his Navy service, awarded him partial disability; later Bateman's office helped Lyerly tap into more benefits.

Bateman's strategy was characteristically low-key. Confrontation wasn't the way to go with the giant bureaucracy. Instead, Bateman was persistent, peppering the agency with penetrating questions that pointed the way toward the decision he sought.

"He beat them up with questions that led them to the right answer," explained his son, Newport News City Councilman Herbert Bateman Jr.

All elected officials are bombarded with requests for help and routinely intervene for their constituents with various bureaucracies. What made Bateman's approach different, says his son, was his personal interest in people. He had the usual staff assigned to constituent relations, but he got directly involved, and that paid off: "You get the ball rolling a lot faster when you make the calls yourself."

In Lyerly's case, that involvement took the form of showing up at an appeal hearing at the VA on Lyerly's disability claim.

But Bateman's help to Lyerly went beyond trying to wrest justice from the government, and beyond the normal limits of a congressman helping a constituent. At one point, Bateman turned to generous men he knew back home to raise money to keep Lyerly from losing his home. And Lyerly wasn't the only person who received this "above and beyond the call of duty" help from a representative whose notion of service didn't end at the office door.

The personal interest, the quiet persistence, the compassion for the people he served were the Bateman touch. In Lyerly's case, finally, the government was there to help him.

POSTSCRIPT: Part of Bateman's legacy is seen in the lives of constituents such as James Lyerly. Part is in the larger public arena, where he was an ardent advocate for military preparedness and the role of a strong Navy in national defense, issues important to his district and the nation. That's why his colleagues in the Virginia General Assembly named the Virginia Advanced Shipbuilding and Carrier Integration Center in Newport News for him. Bateman's name is already on the building, and the formal dedication is set for Thursday.

The U.S. Navy honored Bateman by naming a research facility at Dahlgren - one whose work takes on new significance today - the Herbert H. Bateman Chemical Biological Defense Center. And the Bateman Maritime Research Center at The Mariners' Museum is an apt memorial to a man who loved history and was a tireless advocate for the maritime interests of his home region and for the museum that tells their stories. And up on Assateague Island, the Bateman educational and administrative building is taking shape at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, a

tribute to his long-term advocacy for wildlife refuges.
Copyright © 2002, Daily Press

 

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INDIAN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN COUNCIL, INC HOSTS REPUBLICAN HOUSE MEMBERS AT ITS INAUGURAL DINNER

Thursday, September 26, 2002

For Immediate Release Contact Jack Hession (202) 347-1323

Washington, D.C. – Last night, the newly formed Indian American Republican Council, Inc. (IARC) hosted its inaugural dinner in Washington, D.C. IARC has been created to provide a platform for Indian Americans to work closely with the Republican Party and participate actively at the local, state, and Federal levels nationwide in the formulation of policies that are of importance to the Indian American community and the nation.

To ensure the success of IARC’s mission, its immediate goal is the establishment of a broad based grassroots community extended through organized state based Republican Party affiliates linked together through common goals and objectives. The focus of IARC is Republican Party centric with an emphasis on fostering political involvement with the Republican Party among Indian Americans in the United States.

Representatives Tom Davis (VA-11), Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Ed Royce (CA-39), Joe Wilson (SC-2), and Ander Crenshaw (FL-4) attended the inaugural dinner where individual members of IARC contributed $25,000 to both the House and Senate Republican campaign committees. “Increasing the Republican majority in the House will require significant grassroots support in communities across the country,” Davis said. “IARC’s efforts will be a crucial element of our success in November, and I congratulate the Council for crafting a framework through which Indian Americans can participate in, and influence for the better, elections at the local, state and Federal level.”

“This event, attended by the Chairman of the NRCC, Ed Royce, Joe Wilson and others, has solidified the purpose and desire of IARC to actively participate at the grassroots level to help bolster the Republican majority in the House and gain the majority in the Senate,” stated Dr. R. Vijayanagar of Tampa, Florida, Chairman of IARC. “It is imperative to promote and communicate the Republican message to the Indian American community nationwide.”

IARC has moved quickly to make its presence known in Washington, D.C. having obtained the services of Mr. Jack Hession of Washington based Madison Government Affairs, Inc. (www.madisongov.net) Mr. Hession will assist in the development and implementation of the grassroots strategy for IARC to help foster an ongoing dialogue between the Indian American community, Republican National Committee and the Bush Administration.


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Travis gets new big movers

By Ian Thompson

TRAVIS AFB -- Travis Air Force Base will get its 12 C-17 Globemaster III jet transports in 2007, Solano County's Congressional delegation announced Monday.

The base will begin to lose 16 of its older C-5 Galaxy jet transports between 2005 and 2008, according to the briefing Air Force officials gave House and Senate Armed Services Committee staff.

Once these shifts are finished, Travis AFB will end up with a net three more officer positions, but lose 408 enlisted and 15 civilian positions.

The staffing changes are mainly because the C-17 requires less maintenance and has a smaller aircrew than the C-5.

The base also will get $156 million in military construction funding to support the C-17s' arrival. That money will help pay for constructing new buildings for the C-17, as well as modifying runways and hangars.

The proposed moves are part of the Air Force's Strategic Airlift Roadmap, a 20-year plan for the Air Force's airlift needs.

Staffing and construction funding details were missing from last week's word that the Air Force planned to station the 12 C-17s at Travis AFB, but also gradually withdraw 16 older C-5s.

Travis AFB is one of three California bases that can expect to see changes in the type and number of aircraft assigned to it, according to the briefing which included staff of Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.

March Air Reserve Base in Southern California will get eight C-17s and eight KC-130s for its reserve airlift and air refueling squadrons while losing 16 C-141 Starlifter jet transports - half in 2004 and half in 2005. March will also lose two of its present KC-135R air tankers.

The base will get two C-17s in 2005 with the rest arriving in 2006. It also will receive $63 million in military construction funding for its C-17s and KC-1302s.

The Channel Islands Air Force Base is getting eight C-130Js between 2002 and 2007.

Dover AFB, Del., the main East Coast air mobility base, is also expected to get a squadron of C-17s and KC-130s, according to Monday's briefing.

Air Force officials at both the Pentagon and Air Mobility Command said the proposed moves announced during Monday's briefing are tentative and have not yet received official blessing.

For Travis AFB, the C17s are going to be delivered in 2007, barring any changes.

All this is contingent on an approved 2002 budget that includes building a 180-aircraft C-17 fleet, Tauscher staffers said.

The 16 C-5s, the older of the base's Galaxies, will gradually disappear in 2005 and will continue to be phased out until 2008. These aircraft will be shifted to units stationed at Memphis International Airport, Tenn., and Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport near Martinsburg, W.Va.

Travis AFB presently has two active-duty and two Air Force Reserve squadrons with 32 C-5s allocated to them, but has 37 C-5s assigned here.

The C-5s that remain at Travis AFB will be fully modernized with new avionics systems and engines, according to Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Solano.

Fairfield has lobbied for years to get the C-17s located at Travis AFB, contending the Globemasters will help ensure Travis AFB doesn't suffer when the 2005 base closure round arrives.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.

 

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Air Force Times
September 16, 2002

Holding Up In The Rough

C-5s shine on dangerous, dusty Afghan airstrip

By Gordon Trowbridge, Times staff writer

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — On a high plateau in the Afghan desert, a handful of Air Force crews have been turning the Cadillac of cargo jets into a rugged off-roader.

More than 40 times in July and August, during two series of missions, the C-5 Galaxy touched down and took off from this dusty former Taliban stronghold. The West’s biggest jet, the Galaxy has overcome punishing conditions to go where the enormous, aging and occasionally troubled airplane has never gone before.

"Not a lot of room for error," said Maj. Tim Runnette of Dover Air Force Base, Del.’s 436th Airlift Wing, standing on the flight deck of his C-5 after an adrenaline-inducing approach.

The job pits a plane nearly a football field long and weighing as much as 400 tons against heat, elevation and a short runway on an ill-equipped airfield in the middle of a barren plain plagued by poor visibility. Worse yet, this gargantuan airlifter makes quite a big target for unfriendlies who take occasional shots at U.S. forces.

Yet the C-5 has won its own Battle of Kandahar — a victory that is, according to the men and women who crew it, vindication for a plane notorious for maintenance problems that sometimes seem as massive as the plane itself.

Aside from occasional maintenance delays on the ground at Kandahar, the plane had a perfect record through its two operations, moving more than 4.4 million pounds of cargo, bringing home Canadian coalition forces in July and supplying the Army’s 82nd Airborne in August.

"We’re more than happy to demonstrate that this aircraft can accomplish the mission," Runnette said.

The missions also let the C-5 steal at least a corner of the spotlight from the C-17 Globemaster, the versatile and expensive new airlifter that has been a workhorse on the Europe-to-Afghanistan route since Operation Enduring Freedom launched.

Beyond the huge cargo loads moved or the political implications, the C-5’s appearance in Afghan-istan represents the conquest of a massive challenge for the plane and its crews, the aviation equivalent of taking your spacious Caddy up a desert trail.

Landing in a different world

It’s dusk at Kandahar Airfield after another oppressively hot late-August afternoon. The sky is cloudless but hardly clear: Powder-fine dust, which coats every square inch of the high plateau on which Kandahar sits, has been carried by whipping winds high into the air. The setting sun is a fuzzy gray glob on the horizon, and the rocky ridge that runs just three miles from the runway has disappeared.

The massive C-5, on final approach after an eight-hour flight from Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, is heard long before it’s seen. Seconds after the C-5 emerges from the veil of dust, just a few thousand feet from the runway, it banks hard right — its pilot has just been able to make out the runway lights, the closest Kandahar comes to electronic navigation.

To the relief of observers, a quick correction puts the plane over the strip just in time. The plane touches down and, an instant later, thrust reversers begin to jerk it to a halt. About three hours later — enough time for the overheated brakes to cool and for repairs to the landing gear — the plane will return to the air for the long trip back to Germany.

Such white-knuckle approaches are the product of several factors: the reduced but still very real threat of attack, low visibility, thinner air at Kandahar’s high elevation that saps the plane of thrust and maneuverability, an improved but still suboptimal runway and the size and weight of the plane.

In short, it’s a different world than the trans-Atlantic cargo hauls that have made the C-5 a crucial but less publicized player in Enduring Freedom.

"Between Kandahar and Frankfurt — it’s amazing the difference," said Lt. Col. Chris Raushenbach of the 436th Airlift Wing as he piloted his C-5 between the busy European air hub and the desolate airstrip in the Afghan desert.

"Most airports we fly into have significantly more in the way of navigational aids," he said, smiling at the understatement. C-5 missions usually benefit from the full suite of electronic navigation equipment available at most major airports and military bases. At Kandahar, crews must rely on the Global Positioning System and their own eyes, with the occasional aid of night-vision goggles.

Probably their most important tool is training: Nearly all C-5 crews taking on this mission include at least some special operations-qualified members. The airlift community’s advanced Special Operations Low Level crews are trained to take cargo jets on low-level, night-flying missions into hostile areas, even with a plane as unwieldy as the C-5.

Afghanistan may not be as hostile as it was during battles last fall and winter, but the threat from ground fire still looms in crews’ minds. Aircraft are blacked out on approach, and they follow a corkscrew pattern down to the airfield to reduce exposure to areas outside the perimeter, which are patrolled by U.S. and coalition ground troops. As the landing nears, loadmasters don flak vests.

"Even though we’ve been doing wartime flying, to have the opportunity to go into an area of conflict, that brings up issues we’re not dealing with every day," Airman 1st Class Ed Doris, a C-5 loadmaster from Dover, said during a break on his first mission into Kandahar. "It certainly requires a concentration and focus."

It’s a history-making move, said Michael Leister, director of the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover and a former C-5 crew chief.

"It’s out there at the very tip of the spear," he said. "We’ve practiced that in the past, we’ve always said we could do it, but now we needed it, and we did it."

Army/Air Force team strong

The task of bringing C-5s into Kandahar goes far beyond aircrews and the Air Force.

The Army’s role has been large: Air traffic control at Kandahar is handled by the the Army’s 1st Battalion, 58th Aviation Regiment. Maintaining Kandahar’s airstrip — pounded first by bombing, then by heavy cargo planes and practically melting in Afghanistan’s sweltering heat — falls to the Army’s 307th Engineering Battalion.

The airfield’s lone runway is almost constantly under repair of some sort, and the runway’s listed length of about 10,400 feet varies hourly, depending on the state of the pavement. For much of the August C-5 missions, it was closer to 8,000 feet, barely enough for the C-5’s minimum needs. Patches over bomb craters require constant upkeep.

"The Army engineers have done a tremendous job," said Col. Rick Martin, commander of the 615th Air Mobility Operations Group, which stood up in Kandahar to support the August C-5 flights.

Even with the Army’s hard work, Kandahar is not kind to airplanes, nor airplanes to Kandahar. July’s C-5 flights brought Canadian troops home, meaning they landed at Kandahar light and took off heavy. The August missions brought heavy equipment into Kandahar, meaning loaded airplanes were landing on a shorter runway, adding up to more pounding for both.

Meanwhile, aerial port crews from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., and Dover drew the hot and sweaty task of loading and unloading the planes as quickly as possible, to minimize ground time, usually with engines still running. Tanker Airlift Control Element teams, sent to Kandahar in advance of the C-5 missions, handled everything from load planning to maintenance.

"The cooperation, between the Army and the Air Force, between the different units, has been the best I’ve ever seen, hands-down. It’s a heck of a set-up," said Chief Master Sgt. John Buchanan, superintendent of the Travis aerial port.

‘So far, we’re 100 percent’

The decision to send the C-5 along the full length of the Enduring Freedom air bridge came after months of using the C-17 as the primary airlifter into the theater.

The near-universal praise for the C-17’s performance — after more than a decade of questions from Congress and other critics about the plane’s cost — has bolstered Air Mobility Command’s plea for more of the versatile jets.

Now, there is hope in the C-5 community that its plane’s performance in-theater has demonstrated how a little effort and planning can conquer the aging jet’s much-documented maintenance woes.

C-5 mission-capable rates have hovered at or just below 60 percent in recent years, the lowest in AMC. The figure is close to 70 percent so far in 2002. Planners have worked hard to ensure a perfect record on the Afghan missions, selecting the best from the C-5 fleet and paying close attention to maintenance.

"When you’re going to bring an aircraft like this into an austere location, they’ll be sure they’ve got it whipped into shape," said Staff Sgt. Donald Thompson, a C-5 engine maintainer from Travis Air Force Base who was part of the C-5 team in Kandahar.

"So far, we’re 100 percent."

While some C-5 partisans may privately wonder if the C-17 has gotten the bulk of the work so the Air Force could bolster its case for more planes, airlift planners are quick to point out that landing in spots such as Kandahar is on the top of the C-17s’ to-do list, and a rarity for the C-5.

"[The C-5] has helped tremendously," said Navy Capt. Nicholas Cheston, senior Crisis Action Team chief at U.S. Transportation Command, the nation’s joint command for airlift, sealift and ground transportation. Still, Cheston said, "it has a tremendous requirement for infrastructure.

"It’s something we look forward to using, but absolutely it’s going to be the C-17 that will continue to be the workhorse."

That won’t keep C-5 fans from promoting their plane.

"This is the first time the C-5 has been used in an expeditionary capacity," said Martin, the Kandahar air mobility operations group commander.

"We’ve proved this is an expeditionary aircraft."

 

 

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Travis supporters need to use single voice

There were no surprises in a new report released this week that outlines necessary strategies to keep Travis Air Force Base viable and away from any base-closure consideration.

Affordable housing for military personnel, encroachment from nearby cities, improved base facilities and more modern aircraft were at the top of the list in the Travis Enhancement Report commissioned by six cities, the Solano Economic Development Corp. and Solano Community College.

These issues long have been those most mentioned when officials talk about the base and its future. They take on more weight now that the Department of Defense plans another round of base closure and realignment talks in 2005.

The No. 1 recommendation was that different interest groups need to speak with a unified voice when lobbying for Travis. Too often, the Department of Defense gets mixed messages from the community on Travis issues. Special interest groups and local government agencies need to take heed.

Near the top of the recommendations - again no surprise - is the need for affordable housing. Unfortunately, an analysis used by the military says there is adequate affordable housing here, which is not the case.

The report urges local governments to partner with private developers to build more affordable housing close to the base - or create privately built military housing. This will be a critical effort if Travis is to remain viable.

Joint-use of the airfield by private companies - maybe commercial cargo firms - once again surfaced among the recommendations. Such partnerships exist at other bases, Scott AFB in Illinois, the most notable.

Another key recommendation calls for updating the base's "noise footprint" to make sure there are no homes built too close to the base. There is a critical need to keep land uses compatible with the base.

It's uncertain what the process will be for the cities, county, college district and others to read and approve the report. They can do it individually or collectively.

The best way to show a united front would be a single meeting, with city councils, the supervisors, the college board and Sedcorp's board approving the report unanimously.

Surely, that will send a message that the community speaks with a single voice when it comes to supporting Travis.

Sunday, Sept. 15, 2002

 

 

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September 13, 2002
Report: Area needs to support base

By Ian Thompson

FAIRFIELD - To keep Travis Air Force Base open, supporters must improve the affordable housing stock, fight encroachment, improve base facilities and modernize aircraft, according to a Travis Enhancement Report released this week.

"We are on the right track," Fairfield Mayor Karin MacMillan said, adding that she hadn't seen the final report in entirety but had reviewed a draft. Now members of the consortium that commissioned the report must "make sure we do what needs to be done."

"The report is exactly what Fairfield and other cities in Solano County need to focus our collective efforts on to ensure that the Air Force doesn't even think about putting Travis on a (closure) list," Vice Mayor Harry Price said.

A consortium of six cities, Solano County, the Solano County Economic Development Corp. and Solano Community College commissioned Madison Government Affairs to investigate the best way to keep the base open and viable earlier this year. The 86-page report contains 30 recommendations for improving Travis AFB's military value and several action plans to carry these out. Few consortium members have seen the report so far.

The recommendations carry special weight in the light of Department of Defense plans to hold another round of base closures and realignments in 2005. During the 1980s and 1990s, the military closed 29 bases in California, costing the state 97,000 jobs.

The report recommended that local governments pay more attention to the needs of Travis AFB.

"It is our collective opinion and professional judgment that Travis AFB is a base that the Air Force will continue to operate and utilize for the foreseeable future," the report stated. "However, are there areas or functions that need improvement or that require constant monitoring to ensure that they do not become liabilities? The answer to that is absolutely yes!"

The top recommendation stresses that all the different interest groups in Solano County "should speak with one voice and be on the same page" when it comes to lobbying for Travis AFB needs. This could include creating a regional oversight committee, the report stated.

Travis AFB supporters must get the Department of Defense to correct it's analysis of housing in the county to reflect existing housing costs, the report recommended. The current analysis said Travis AFB has an adequate amount of affordable housing for its military workers, a point that frustrated local efforts to get more government support to improve affordable housing.

The report recommended local governments work with developers to build affordable housing close to Travis AFB or create privately built military housing.

Making Travis AFB a joint-use airport resurfaced as a recommendation, with the suggestion that the Air Force control the airfield and allow private uses such as commercial cargo operations there.

The report recommended updating the base's "noise footprint" to ensure homes aren't built where passing aircraft are too loud as well as closely evaluate any land uses around the base to make sure they don't encroach on Travis AFB. It cited the recent purchase of part of the Wilcox Ranch south of the base as an excellent example of keeping land uses that are friendly to Travis AFB.

Just when and how the consortium will act on the report's recommendations isn't known because members need time to digest the report's contents, Fairfield City Manager Kevin O'Rourke said.

Formally presenting the report could either by done at the different city council, supervisors and community college governing board meetings or one large joint meeting, O'Rourke said.

But those who have read it already said the report won't end up just gathering dust on a shelf.

"We need to get on those things right away," Price said.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

 

 

 

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Asian-Indians take seat at Jersey's political table

Fast-growing group exerting its influence


Monday, August 26, 2002


BY JOSH MARGOLIN
Star-Ledger Staff

It was a sweltering July night, but not hot enough to keep 1,200 Asian-Indians away as they converged on a mammoth catering hall in Woodbridge.

Some came on chartered buses, others arrived in expensive cars to Royal Albert's Palace for a fund-raiser and political rally headlined by Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The take for the night: $100,000 for the party cause.

"I want you to know that I will never take your vote for granted," McAuliffe told the crowd. "You all help me this year in these elections ... I promise you once again the Democratic Party will never forget the Asian community."

The July 31 fund-raiser underscored the growing influence of New Jersey's Asian-Indian community, whose votes and money are being are courted by politicians ranging from McAuliffe to Gov. James E. McGreevey to embattled Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), who is up for re-election this fall.

But it was not an isolated event. Two weeks ago, Torricelli was at the catering hall to speak to a 900-person gathering of the Federation of Indian Associations. And it was the Governor who gave the keynote address at a 500-person, standing-room-only banquet for the Asian Indian Chamber of Commerce in May at the Hyatt Regency in Princeton.

"It's such a fast-growing group in New Jersey, we're doing an awful lot to try to target them," Republican State Committee Executive Director Mike DuHaime said. "It's a matter of everyone out-reaching to them. We're working very hard on a local level all around the state. No doubt we have work to do, but both parties have to."

New Jersey's Asian-Indian population more than doubled between 1990 and 2000 and now numbers 169,000 -- 2 percent of the state's 8.4 million people, the biggest proportion of Indian residents of any state. In the last two decades, the Indian community has become the state's fastest-growing ethnic group. Now, it is beginning to flex its political muscles.

"The Asian-Indian community over the last few years has realized we have to get our act together," said Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Somerset), New Jersey's first Indian member of the Legislature and one of only three state legislators of Indian descent in the nation. "The progress has been slow. We have not achieved a lot. But more and more people are coming forward."

This year, for the first time, Asian Indians can point to tangible progress.

In addition to Chivukula's election, McGreevey has named Seema Singh to serve as the first public advocate in nearly a decade, provided the Legislature reinstates the post. Until then, she is working as the state's ratepayer advocate. At the sub-Cabinet level, McGreevey has appointed Asian-Indian New Jerseyans to several high-profile positions. They include:


Assistant Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri, who is in charge of intergovernmental relations.


Assistant Human Services Commissioner Jacob Eapen, who oversees the department's budget, finance, administration and real estate division.


Assistant State Treasurer Raj Vakharia, who has become a chief lieutenant and trouble-shooter for Treasurer John McCormac.


Assistant State Department Commissioner Roger Rajesh Chugh, who, among other things, serves as McGreevey's chief liaison to the Asian communities. Chugh, who caused the Governor some embarrassment early on with a self-promoting personal Web site, also organized the events that featured McAuliffe and Torricelli and is considered an important fund-raiser in Democratic circles.

To leaders in the Indian community and outside observers, the recent strides made by Asian-Indians in both national and state politics were bound to happen once the first generation of immigrants established homes, neighborhoods, businesses and religious institutions.

"It's like any other immigrant group coming to the United States. It's a process of step-by-step," said Rahul Walia, vice president of the Indian radio station WCNJ-FM and an executive with Indian-American magazine Mantram. "When a particular immigrant group is comfortable economically or financially, the next step is, of course, to be a part of the political process."

Kap Sharma, Torricelli's former legislative director, agreed.

"More or less, the community was finally ready to become involved in the political process, said Sharma, now a consultant to the Indian American Center for Political Awareness. "The community's too large in New Jersey for them not to want to participate in the political process. And it's happening around the country."

Another factor that has helped the Indian community break through in New Jersey politics is the ascension of McGreevey, who for a decade served as mayor of Woodbridge, a town at the heart of New Jersey's Indian community, where the "Little India" neighborhood is a key stop for political candidates.

McGreevey was the first non-Indian to be interviewed on Walia's radio station when it went on the air three years ago. He aggressively courted the community during his three campaigns for mayor and put on a major push for the Indian vote when he ran for governor in 1997 and 2001.

Chugh, who ran the McGreevey campaign's Asian outreach effort, said there was no doubt Indians would play a leading role if McGreevey took over the Statehouse.

"McGreevey made promises and McGreevey kept promises that he would empower the Asian community," Chugh said. "This took a long time."

In addition to votes, the Indian community can also deliver campaign money. In 2000, Asian-Indians across the country pumped $9 million into campaigns at every level, Sharma said.

As for strength of numbers, Torricelli said he saw the power clearly last year when he made a stop at a Hindu temple in Edison after an earthquake rocked the Gujarat region in India.

"I was there with (Sen.) Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey, and there were hundreds of people," Torricelli said. "I said to myself, 'Things are really changing.' This community has really gotten everybody's attention."

 

 

 

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August 21, 2002
Fencing Off Bases Isolates Military From Its Neighbors
By Russell Gold, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

AUSTIN, Texas -- Army National Guard Lt. Col. John Stanford was called to active duty within four hours of the terrorist attacks last Sept. 11. His mission that day: Work up a "public affairs estimate" of the heat the military would take from neighbors for heightening security around Camp Mabry.

The base, headquarters for the Texas National Guard, was one of hundreds about to be buttoned up amid worries about terrorism, in one of the most visible signs of how the attacks changed daily American life. Camp Mabry's gates were open and unguarded and its wooded western edge was unfenced, making it resemble a park more than a military installation. Anyone could use its jogging track or its secluded fishing pond. Amenities such as these made Camp Mabry many friends among its influential neighbors in the half-million-dollar homes off adjacent Balcones Drive.

Within days, Lt. Col. Stanford's staff hand-delivered letters on embossed base stationery to those neighbors, asking for their "patience and understanding during these troubling times." Next, bulldozers knocked down the majestic live oaks on the base's western border. Up went a 7-foot fence topped with barbed wire and razor wire, a guardpost patrolled by armed military police and floodlights powered by a noisy generator.
In early October, Lt. Col. Stanford faced neighbors packing an elementary-school auditorium, wanting to know when the base would return to normal. "They reacted very violently to the erection of these security measures," Lt. Col. Sanford recalled. One next-door neighbor of the camp, Edward Bellingrath, erected a rooftop protest: an 8-foot-wide sign, with red letters spelling out "Move the military. Create Mabry Park."
Communities around the U.S. are discovering that the military can make a great neighbor -- until wartime. In the previous era of defense-budget cuts, the armed services eagerly opened their doors to the public to help build the kind of local support that can help avert a base closing. Over the last year, bases have reversed course, putting up fences, closing once-public roads and restricting access.

Camp Pendleton's bicycle trails north of San Diego are closed to the public. At Fort Myer's stables near Washington, D.C., where children pet horses used for funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, access is limited and visitors are subject to car searches. Some of the changes have disrupted the lives and livelihoods of nearby homeowners and businesses. And they have left the military and its neighbors struggling to figure out how to accommodate their new separation.

Finding a middle ground is dicey. Many installations, in relative isolation when they were built, now find themselves surrounded by homes and malls. "Both sides have to bend," says Jim Moran, a Congressman who represents the Fort Belvoir area in suburban Fairfax County south of Washington. "The public has to realize that nothing is going to be as free and natural as it has been in the past. The military has to understand ... the public is not the enemy. It is their employer and boss."

Fort Belvoir, south of Alexandria, Va., poses a typical quandary. The base houses dozens of sensitive commands, but it straddles Woodlawn Road, a major east-west thoroughfare used by Fairfax County commuters. Since Sept. 11, the Army has closed the two-mile stretch running through the 8,600-acre base, detouring traffic around it and onto an already-overloaded commercial strip. After a rash of accidents led to eight deaths on the alternative route in a five-week period, police deployed nearly 350 officers to issue citations and warnings about the dangerous conditions.
Split in Two

"They literally split the community in two" by closing the road, says county Supervisor Dana Kauffman, who vented his frustration angrily at Gen. James T. Jackson, commander of several bases in the capital area, during one meeting. The road was reopened in June to base employees and others with Defense Department decals on their cars, to take that traffic off the overloaded detour. But Mr. Kauffman still argues that the military should give Virginia $30 million to build a new road skirting the base.

Andersen Air Force Base in Guam also closed a road that ran through its base, forcing Jesse Pangelinan to shut down his small beach resort there and lay off all eight employees. The two-mile road through the base was the only way to get to the resort. Now Mr. Pangelinan is seeking a disaster-relief loan similar to those given to residents and shop owners in lower Manhattan after Sept. 11.

The Defense Department acknowledges the danger of damaging its relations with neighbors and says it doesn't intend a permanent lockdown. To "appreciably" change the openness of military installations would be a mistake, said Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of defense, though he couldn't say how long current changes would last. "I'm convinced the public is understanding in that regard," he said.
Meanwhile, making adjustments such as solving traffic problems from road closures are a high priority for base commanders faced with angry neighbors, he said. Starting this fall, Route 110 past the Pentagon -- closed to buses and trucks since shortly after the attacks -- will be shifted away at a cost of $30 million.

When Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., shuttered the federally funded museum on its grounds on Sept. 11, the change became permanent. The base houses advanced missile research and development as well as hundreds of aircraft. Since 1969, it also was home to the National Atomic Museum, which attracts 100,000 visitors yearly to view its artifacts of the nuclear age, including 75 replicas of bombs. When the base, like other U.S. bases world-wide, jumped to the military's highest threat-condition level, the museum staff was sent home.

A month later, the museum's director, Jim Walther, still couldn't get the military to commit to reopening and realized he needed a new home. Afraid he would have to lay off staff, he leased space in a mall for his gift shop, then leased a vacant store downtown and got a special appropriation of $200,000 from the Department of Energy for renovations. The cramped new quarters still can't accommodate his B-52 bomber or Titan missile displays, which remain outside the museum's building on the base. "It was compromising security," base spokeswoman Lt. Kelley Jeter said of the museum.

Five days after the terrorist attacks, officials at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia met and decided not to close the base to its popular deer-hunting season in October -- which meant letting in armed members of the public in camouflage gear.

"It's kind of a stress reliever and at that time I think everyone was under a lot of stress," says Dan Hensley, a Quantico game warden. Besides, he adds, "It's good public relations ... . You don't want to shut out the public totally." Hunters, however, had to go through more paperwork and security checkpoints, instead of freely roaming the 56,000 acres west of Interstate 95 as they did before. The same restrictions will be in place this year when dove season opens Sept. 2. The base is home to the service's officer candidate school as well as more than 6,500 active-duty personnel.

Some upset neighbors also have toned down their gripes to avoid appearing insensitive to the nation's terrorism worries. When Fort Monmouth in Oceanport, N.J., erected a sandbagged checkpoint, residents of adjacent Horseneck Point at first pushed to have their assessed home values -- and thus their property taxes -- lowered. Fort Monmouth is the army's headquarters for communications and intelligence-gathering systems. The new fences and armed sentries, says John M. Bonforte Sr., head of the local property-owners association, "changed the character and nature of Horseneck Point."

Dropped Appeals
But the residents dropped their assessment appeals in March because they worried their concerns would be seen as too crass -- especially since some local residents had died in the World Trade Center collapse. A 10% reduction in property taxes seemed insignificant, says Donald Moliver, a tax appraiser hired by the residents. "How can it stack up against someone who lost their life?" he asks. Residents are still counting on an upcoming citywide reassessment to adjust their values and their

taxes, however.
Some hard feelings between a base and its excluded neighbors still linger almost a year after Sept. 11. Austin's Camp Mabry is a vivid example.
When it opened in 1892 as a summer encampment for state volunteer units, the base was surrounded by farmland. There were some early problems with neighbors: The military bought several local farms after stray bullets from the rifle range killed livestock. A century later, residents have been fiercely protective of Camp Mabry. When developers urged Texas lawmakers to sell 67 acres of the base owned by the state in 1995, neighbors fought to protect their backyard woods from being turned into a strip mall and condominiums. They convinced then-Gov. George W. Bush to kill the plans.

Much of the good will evaporated when the barbed-wire fence went up. "I think people have been very comfortable about having Camp Mabry in the midst of the neighborhood and I don't think they have thought a lot about what it is," says David Pharis, head of the local neighborhood association. The military has since made some compromises. A checkpoint causing traffic backups was moved several hundred feet into the base. Access to the jogging track was restored during daylight hours, provided joggers check in at the gate.

But requests to move the fence, hide it by planting vines and flowers, or remove the barbed and razor wire have been denied, for security and budget reasons. Mr. Pharis says the wire is particularly galling to neighbors because it makes the base "look like a prison or concentration camp."

Lt. Col. Stanford says Camp Mabry is following the lead of nearby Army camps including Fort Sam Houston, the Army's medical command headquarters located near San Antonio's downtown tourist district. "If the President and Chiefs of Staff take the lead and say things are better, open all the posts, then we will change," he says.

That explanation hasn't satisfied Mr. Bellingrath, an optometrist who erected the rooftop sign and set up a Web site to rally support for moving the base altogether. That struck some as going too far. On Dec. 15, the neighborhood association board passed a resolution disavowing the efforts of Mr. Bellingrath, a former board member. At the same time, it is surveying residents partly to determine whether they support his idea to transfer the base's military functions to Camp Swift, 30 miles east of Austin, and turn Camp Mabry into a public park.

He has drawn some fierce opposition. Camp Mabry "is a military installation and not your private playground," wrote Austin resident Andy Anderson in December in one of many e-mail responses sent to Mr. Bellingrath's www.campmabry.com site. One night, someone vandalized Mr. Bellingrath's rooftop sign. He scrubbed it with steel wool and put it back up.

Residents closest to the base are more likely to agree with his sentiments. Andy Draughn, an oil and gas investor whose backyard runs up against the new fence, says the military could have been "more considerate." After all, he says, Camp Mabry, which provides back-office support, isn't exactly a hotbed of military activity.

Lt. Col. Stanford disagrees. The base plays a key role in the war on terrorism, he says, noting that its national-guard troops now are guarding prisoners captured in Afghanistan at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay. But he also says such fine points miss the bigger picture. "The war has come to the United States," he says. "Security requirements have changed."

 

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Challenges ahead for new police chief

Fairfield has a new top cop - Bill Gresham - whose interim job as police chief was made permanent this week by City Manager Kevin O'Rourke.

Gresham is no stranger. He spent the last 26 years with the department, slowly working his way up the ladder from officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and now chief. His experience at all levels of the department and his knowledge of the community should be an asset.

Those were the reasons O'Rourke tabbed him for the job, "his commitment to the community, the (city) council and the city organization," O'Rourke said.

Gresham has been in charge since January when Police Chief Doug Milender retired, so he already is immersed in the tasks at hand. Squarely in front of him is Measure H on the Nov. 5 ballot, the continuation of a 2 percent utility tax that helps fund police and fire operations to the tune of about $3 million per year.

The city hopes voters will retain the tax, but Gresham and O'Rourke will need to look at contingency plans if voters reject it. He also takes over a department in a city that has seen a slight increase in criminal activity. He also has the ongoing challenge of finding and retaining qualified officers. All challenges he says he's ready to tackle, now that he's no longer competing with others for the chief's badge.

We hope Gresham will communicate openly about crimes and investigations, realizing that an informed community will be more supportive of his department's efforts. We all share the common goal: a safer community.

We wish Bill Gresham much success in his new role.

 

 

 

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Influence
The Business of Lobbying

Influence.biz A Legal Times Publication August 21, 2002


Henry Shifts Health Plans
Legislative Strategies ace takes four others, starts new firm

Legislative Strategies Group health care lobbyist Denise Henry is starting her own lobbying shop next month, and taking half the firm with her. Her new shop, to be called Strategic Health Solutions, will focus solely on health care.
It's a clean break. Henry's group, which includes former House Committee counsel Carrie Gavora, Sara Franko, Mary Ann Curran, and researcher Michael Hoak, has a discrete client base at Legislative Strategies, which Henry founded in 1998 with Martin Gold and Larry Smith after leaving Griffin, Johnson, Dover & Stewart.
"I've always wanted to do health boutique. It's the best way to try to take care of the needs of clients," says Henry, one of only a handful of top lobbyists without significant Hill experience. Her clients include Amgen, Biogen Inc., the Novartis Corp., Eli Lilly and Co., and Cardinal Health Inc.
"There are lobby firms that just do tax. Health care is like that, and approps are like that," adds Henry. "Everyone in our group has done health care for a good 15 years."
Gold hired Henry in the early 1990s to work at Gold & Liebengood, which he co-founded with Howard Liebengood in 1984. Public relations firm Burson-Marsteller bought the firm in 1989, and after Gold's five-year contract expired, he and Henry moved together to Griffin, Johnson.
Gold, whose client base includes the National Football League, the Educational Testing Service, the government of Hong Kong, and the Children's Medical Center of Dallas, says he plans to rebuild. Remaining with him at Legislative Strategies are Smith; Ronna Freiberg, a one-time director of legislative affairs for then - Vice President Al Gore; and Michael Grisso, formerly at R. Duffy Wall and Associates.
"I do think that we would like to be somewhat bigger than we are now, if only because we want to go back into health care," says Gold. "It's a major policy area. It's a lucrative area. The federal government is into it up to its neck. The issues never go away."
The split appears to be amicable. Gold, who has twice started his own firm, says he knows the impulse well.
"I understand [Henry's] psychology because it was my own psychology at an earlier stage," he says. "I don't have a quarrel with what she is doing. I wish her the best."

 

 

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Charleston (SC) Post and Courier
August 7, 2002

Many Base Closures Anticipated In 2005

By Terry Joyce Of The Post and Courier Staff

The U.S. Defense Department is preparing for a new round of base closures in 2005, and judging by the views Tuesday of some Pentagon leaders, the cuts could be steep.

"We estimate the next round (of base closures) could save $6 billion a year, even if we only cut 12 percent" of the nation's military infrastructure, said Phil Grone, principal assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and the environment.

Grone and others spoke during the National Association of Installation Developers' annual conference at Charleston Place Hotel. The conference ended Tuesday.

A 12 percent cut could be a low estimate. Grone said a 1998 study indicated that 20 to 25 percent of the nation's military infrastructure could be considered more than what the military needs. He said "a rigorous analysis to shed excess capacity" would be completed in 2004 before the Pentagon decides how many bases must be closed.

Grone also echoed his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has called for a transformation of the U.S. military. In this case, that would involve getting the men and women in uniform out from support jobs and into combat for the war on terror.

Fred Kuhn, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, said, "The individual (service-member) who's painting a building or cutting the grass needs to be retrained to fight the war."

Grone said Rumsfeld has indicated he wants much of the military's family housing units privatized by 2007. Private companies would operate and maintain housing. They would be paid from the housing allowances that service members now receive only if they live off base.

Earlier, Ann Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for infrastructure analysis, told the conference that she had been brought on board "to get the Navy ready for the 2005 BRAC (base realignment and closure)."

"We need a fair and balanced analysis of our bases" before bases are named for closure, Davis said. "We also need a rapid disposal of our closed bases," she said. "Delays cost us money."

Davis said the Navy also is considering housing privatization as a way to build more barracks for the 25,000 sailors who now must live on their ships even when the ships are tied up at homeports.

The Pentagon also is concerned about encroachment - the increasing proximity of urban development near military bases. Grone said that issue had become a key element in defense planning. Such factors as aircraft operations, air space and training ranges all run afoul of encroachment from civilian communities.

"The only way to achieve competency in the military is through repetitive live-fire training," he said. Encroachment throws up roadblocks to that training.

Terry Joyce covers the military.

 

 

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July 29, 2002

C-5 Galaxy adds another first to its distinguished history

By Staff Sgt. Jim Verchio
782nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron Public Affairs

OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AMCNS) -- C-5 crews from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., and Dover Air Force Base, Del., are flying “down range” into the rugged and unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan to extract Canadian forces and equipment from the international airport at Kandahar.

It takes a cohesive team of mobility warriors to accomplish a mission of this magnitude. From maintainers and aerial porters, to flight crews and life-support specialists, the total-team is working around the clock to make sure nothing stands in the way of mission accomplishment.

The teams, which are staged at a forward operating location, are eager to prove the C-5 Galaxy can deploy into a combat environment - for the first time. According to the 782nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron Commander, Lt. Col. Mark “Marshall” Dillon, this first-ever deployment of the C-5 has sports parallels to the Super Bowl.

“Sure it’s nice to say you played in the Super Bowl,” Dillon said during a pre-mission briefing. “However, as warriors, we must not be satisfied with that - we must plan on taking home the ring.”

To achieve victory, the crews and maintainers are counting on the C-5 Galaxy to get the job done - and it’s not letting them down. Despite a reputation as being “mechanically challenged,” this mobility force multiplier is proving to be worth its weight in gold. The 100 percent on-time departure rate is impressive for any airframe, but for an airframe as seasoned and war-proven as the C-5, it’s remarkable.

“It’s almost impossible to compare the C-5 to any other aircraft in the Air Force inventory,” said Staff Sgt. Bill Hoeft, a flight engineer with the 782nd AS. “Fred [as the C-5 is affectionately know to aircrews and maintainers alike] can haul more cargo and go further than any aircraft on a single load of fuel,” Hoeft said. “We’re not an intra-theater airlifter, we’re a strategic airlifter capable of global reach. That’s why we’ve been invited to the game -- because no other aircraft does it better.”

-- Get the game on

It’s four hours and 15 minutes until launch, and one of the crews from the 782nd AS has just been alerted. It’s their turn to step to the jet, and everything is running as smooth as a fine tuned Swiss watch.

As the two flight engineers accomplish their preflight, the loadmasters are going over the load plan and making sure the weight and balance are squared away. The team is ready and could probably accomplish the mission without saying a word to each other.

As takeoff time approaches, all checklists are repeated. The engineer orchestrates the requirements to the pilots, and each answers they’re ready to roll.

Rolling down the runway, the anticipation builds as the crew prepares to head into the blue sky. Years of training for the crew and hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” for maintenance, aerial port and life-support warriors culminate as Fred departs on another on time take off.

-- Into the box

Hours of long-range cruise are behind the crew as each member dons his body armor and survival vest. They’re just minutes away from the airfield which lies in some of the most austere conditions on earth. Guided by the aircraft’s Global Positioning System and a navigator from Dover’s elite Special Operations Low Level team, the completely blacked out aircraft prepares to descend into Kandahar.

“At this point it’s a real adrenaline rush,” said Tech. Sgt. Miroslav Nerad, Jr. a flight engineer assigned to the 782nd AS, who is deployed from the Airlift 9th Airlift Squadron at Dover Air Force Base, Del. “We know what we have to do. You get in, you get out and you get the job done. It’s a rush to be able to do what we’ve been trained to do in an operational environment.”

It’s dark, treacherous and dangerous, and this is where the navigator comes into play.

“What we bring to the fight is total situational awareness,” said Capt. Keith Nelson, a SOLL II navigator from Dover AFB who is assigned to the 782nd AS. “We’re trained to use night vision goggles so we can relieve the pilot from the majority of his navigational duties and allow him to just fly the aircraft. Field acquisition, terrain avoidance, threat avoidance and tactical mission planning are our specialties - specialties that make sure Fred gets in, out and home safe.”

Although the airfield can easily handle the C-5, its condition leaves much to be desired. When the venerable workhorse touches down in complete darkness, it feels more like an afternoon in the four-wheel drive than the usual smooth surface, but as every C-5 crew knows, the beloved C-5 Galaxy easily adapts without incident.

-- Time to get to work

Almost instantly the crew’s scanner steps out of the Galaxy into the black hole to prepare for the upcoming load. It’s serious business, and everything is accomplished in double time. The giant’s visor comes open, and the aircraft is simultaneously knelt to accommodate the thousands of pounds of rolling stock, pallets and passengers.

With engines running, air terminal specialists appear out of the darkness. All equipment has been checked and rechecked to make sure it’s safe to upload. In a blink of an eye, the entire team has the aircraft fully loaded. It’s now time for the Galaxy to accept the most important cargo - Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment soldiers who have spent eight months defending freedom and the war on terrorism.

-- Heading home

Stirring up the dust, the fully loaded, yet nimble C-5 does a 180-degree turn and prepares to depart Kandahar. Once again, it’s nearly a lights out operation due to the unknown threat just outside the airfield’s perimeter.

Fred traverses its way down the virtual gravel back road that’s been termed a runway. Throttles to take-off power then brakes released, and the magnificent marvel of 1960s technology disappears into the darkness. Darkness that resembles a black hole -- darkness that represents a light at the end of the tunnel for the Canadians who are finally heading home.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Capt. Gary Goosen, an instructor pilot assigned to the 782nd AS, who is deployed from Travis. “It’s exciting to prove to the world the remarkable capabilities of the C-5 Galaxy. This is a mission America’s C-5 crews are ready for, and it’s a mission the C-5 Galaxy can do over and over again.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wider Military Role in U.S. Is Urged

July 21, 2002
By ERIC SCHMITT


PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., July 17 - The four-star
general in charge of defending the United States against
attack said he would favor changes in existing law to give
greater domestic powers to the military to protect the
country against terrorist strikes.

The Bush administration has directed lawyers in the
Departments of Justice and Defense to review the Posse
Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply
restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic
law enforcement. Any changes would be subject to
Congressional approval.

The general, Ralph E. Eberhart of the Air Force, said he
had no specific changes in mind, but added in an interview
here, "We should always be reviewing things like Posse
Comitatus and other laws if we think it ties our hands in
protecting the American people."

The willingness of General Eberhart and some other senior
officers to consider amending the post-Reconstruction law
is a shift in thinking by many top Pentagon officials, who
have traditionally been wary of involving the military in
domestic law enforcement.

Military leaders have generally supported the restrictions
because their troops were not specifically trained in those
roles, and they worried that domestic tasks could lead to
serious political problems.

But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, some Pentagon officials
and military officers are beginning to say that the law, as
it stands, may slow or complicate their domestic defense
missions.

Some military officials fear that without additional
authority to operate in the United States, they could be
blamed for failures without adequate ability to prevent
them. But other Pentagon officials continue to contend that
accepting greater domestic responsibilities is risky, and
that any proposed changes should receive careful public
scrutiny.

All of this reflects the larger national debate over how
best to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

As recently as May, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said the Pentagon would not seek any changes in the law,
and the legal review contained in President Bush's new plan
for domestic security announced this week surprised many
senior officers and Pentagon officials.

But White House officials insisted that administration
lawyers review the law to determine whether domestic
preparedness and response efforts would benefit from
greater involvement of military personnel, reflecting
tension between some at the Pentagon and the Office of
Homeland Security.

"This was their initiative, not ours," said one senior
Defense Department official.

At the same time, however, other senior military officials
- including General Eberhart - said the review made sense.
The general finds himself in the delicate position of
balancing the wariness of his bosses at the Pentagon with
his own responsibilities as the leader of the military's
new Northern Command, where he will presumably want as much
flexibility as possible to carry out his mission.

Other commanders are asking similar questions as the
military develops expertise in areas, like information
operations and cyberwarfare, that could support domestic
law enforcement agencies. Such support is now barred by
law, defense officials said.

No one is sure what additional responsibilities the
military might take on if the law is revised. White House
and Pentagon officials said several incidents since Sept.
11 illustrate why changes may be needed.

When National Guard troops were deployed on the Canadian
border after Sept. 11 to support Border Patrol and Customs
agents, the Posse Comitatus law prevented those troops from
conducting surveillance from the helicopters that flew them
to their assignment.

Administration lawyers determined that President Bush would
violate Posse Comitatus if he called up National Guard
troops to help provide security at airports nationwide. So
Mr. Bush had to ask governors to use their call-up
authority to perform the same task.

"We think a review is necessary to streamline
interpretations of some existing laws," said Gordon
Johndroe, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security.

The Posse Comitatus Act was enacted after the Civil War in
response to the perceived misuse of federal troops who were
charged with domestic law enforcement in the South. But it
has come to symbolize the separation of civilian affairs
from military influence.

Posse Comitatus restricts military forces from performing
domestic law enforcement duties, like policing. Over the
years, the law has been amended to allow the military to
lend equipment to federal, state and local authorities;
assist federal agencies in drug interdiction work; protect
national parks; and execute quarantine and certain health
laws. About 5,000 federal troops supported civilian
agencies at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City this
year.

"My view has been that Posse Comitatus will constantly be
under review as we mature this command, as we do our
exercises, as we interact with FEMA, F.B.I., and those lead
federal agencies out there," said General Eberhart,
referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Northern Command, which begins operations here on Oct.
1, will be in charge of all military personnel involved in
flying patrols over American cities, guarding the waters up
to 500 miles off the United States coast, and responding to
major terrorist attacks.

In his vision for the new command, General Eberhart said
the military could use new technology, like
remote-controlled surveillance blimps operating at 70,000
feet and unmanned Predator drones that would patrol
American coastlines.

The general said it was also possible that the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, known as Norad, might
expand beyond the United States and Canada to include
Mexico, or that the United States might form a separate
joint defense command with Mexico.

"To defend this nation, we have to defend as far out as
possible," General Eberhart said. "Therefore we need the
support of Canada and Mexico to be able to defend our
interests."

The Northern Command will unify a range of domestic
security duties now spread over several military units and
services.

General Eberhart, who will also remain leader of Norad,
will be responsible in his new job for coordinating the
military's response to natural disasters like floods,
hurricanes and forest fires, officials said.

The new command would also oversee a unit known as the
Joint Task Force Civil Support, which is trained to respond
to attacks that involve chemical, biological or nuclear
weapons.

While the command will have specific defensive
responsibilities, like flying combat patrols over American
cities, General Eberhart's mission will also involve the
delicate task of backing up civilian agencies in time of
need.

"We will respond in support of a lead federal agency, such
as the F.B.I. or FEMA," he said. "There will be certain
things you can do with federal troops and certain things
you cannot. There are some situations where there's no
other alternatives, and federal forces have to be used to
secure the safety and security of our people."

Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that in a catastrophe, the
military might help quarantine disaster victims and deal
with the water and sanitation needs of thousands of people.


"If a city had no ability to respond and no ability to
command and control, there's a situation where the
president says: `This is an emergency. Northern Command,
you have the lead,' " General Eberhart said. "God forbid,
we'd be prepared to do that."

 

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July 10, 2002
Council reviews recommendations to save Travis

By Ian Thompson

FAIRFIELD - While Fairfield has made a name for itself championing Travis Air Force Base's needs, there is a lot more to be done to keep the area's largest employer viable.

Fairfield's lobbyists, Madison Government Affairs, laid out a checklist of recommendations before a City Council study session Tuesday that would strengthen the base militarily and make it more cost-efficient.

The recommendations are part of a report called the Travis Enhancement Report which is expected to come to the council later this summer.

Worries about Travis AFB's future spurred Fairfield to get its Washington-based lobbying firm, Madison Government Affairs, to put together a plan on how best to keep Travis AFB viable and off an upcoming base closure list.

The report was funded by a state $50,000 Defense Retention grant and contributions from Vallejo, Vacaville, Solano County, Solano Community College and the Solano Economic Development Corp.

Some recommendations, such as the push to speed up the modernization of the C-5 Galaxy jet transport and getting C-17 Globemasters stationed at Travis AFB, are already under way.

"We need both aircraft at Travis," Madison representative Paul Hirsch said, commenting on the report's recommendations that advocated speeding up the C-5 modernization funding and getting more C-17s based here.

Getting all of Solano County's leaders to create a single regional agenda of issues and objectives was "vitally important," according to Hirsch.

Hirsch called the need to build more affordable housing for Travis AFB military people an ongoing concern and one the Department of Defense needs to be convinced to solve.

Fairfield was lauded for its part in buying part of the Wilcox Ranch to allow the base to expand if needed, but Hirsch said the city needs to continue ensuring land use around Travis AFB doesn't adversely impact it.

Hirsch recommended Fairfield, Suisun City and Solano County look into closing the unused county roads east of the base "to provide added security to the base."

The 60th Aerial Port Squadron's facilities need to be upgraded and the railroad spur leading to the base should be repaired and expanded, Hirsch said.

Bringing more missions to Travis AFB, such as moving a Coast Guard C-130 Search and Rescue squadron and advocating establishing a Federal Emergency Management Agency training facility here, would make the base harder to close.

Exploring the possibility of joint use of the base was resurrected as offering "a potential for reducing the cost of running the Air Force base," Hirsch said.

With the Air Force considering replacement of the aging KC-135 air tankers, Hirsch recommended lobbying to get some of the new air refueling aircraft based at Travis AFB.

To keep community support of the base visible, efforts such as a program touting Travis AFB's benefits, hosting a Congressional appreciation days on base, and having a similar event at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott AFB, Ill., were recommended.

"Constant visibility is important," Hirsch said.

The council gave the recommendations thumbs up with Councilwoman Marilyn Farley calling it "a very thorough job."

"I am glad we are on the right track," Councilman John English said.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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U.S. lawmakers commend IACPA internship program
By Vasantha Arora
IACPA’s 5th Annual Congressional Reception 2002

Washington: A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers commended the Washington Leadership Program (WLP), hosted annually by the Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA), offering a six-week internship opportunity to Indian-American students in congressional offices and federal agencies. They also voiced strong support for India-U.S. friendship at the IACPA’s 5th Annual Summer Congressional Reception held at the Reserve Officers Association here on July 9.

Deputy Chief of Indian Mission Alok Prasad recalled his friendship with Gopal Raju, founder of IACPA, a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the participation of Indian Americans in public policy and the political process. “One of the greatest things he has done is to set up the Center,” he said.

WLP is seen as setting the stage for greater political empowerment of the entire Indian-American community

Before assuming the No. 2 position in the Indian Embassy here last year, Prasad, an Indian Foreign Service officer, headed the Americas Desk in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. He said the first paper that he used to read in New Delhi was India Abroad, then edited by Gopal Raju.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), turning to the interns, said, “I think you all (interns) owe a depth of gratitude” to those who helped put in place this process of learning, because it would not only be important for their future but also important in terms of Indian-American relations. “As we get more Indian-Americans involved in this process and as we build the ties between India and the United States, it is win for this country as it is win for India,” he said.

The Republican lawmaker made no secret of his “appreciation” for Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, for his idea, conceived a decade ago, of building the India Caucus in a bid to improve India-U.S. relations. The caucus, in its initial stages, attracted only about eight members. Royce said, “Today, we have 130 lawmakers on the Caucus’ roll. So, you can see the impact that one person and a good idea can have over time.”

Royce said he knew that all the interns present in the room would have “an impact one way or the other and will make use in life of what you have learned here. So I wanted to express my appreciation. I always had Indian Americans on my staff serving as interns ---- and right now we have Sophia in your program and she is doing a good job,” Royce said.

Rep. Pallone shared the views of fellow caucus members about the yeoman service that the WLP had of late been rendering to the Indian-American community. He said, “I was thinking why this program was so successful. I think it has to do with the kind of people involved in the process.”


AMONG THE GUESTS AT THE EVENT
Congressmen
Shelley Berkley (D-NEV); Sherrod Brown (D-OH); Jim McDermott (D-WA); Frank Pallone (D-NJ); Ed Royce (R-CA); Joe Wilson (R-SC).

Staffers
Kathy Kulkarni (Rep. Pallone); Edward Burrier (Rep. Royce); Mathew Jacob (Rep. Tierney); Sumitra Siram (Rep. Meek); Bing Lee (Rep. Johnson); Shilpa Phadhe (Rep. Meehan); Bill McCain (Rep. Meehan); Devika Koppikar (Rep. Cummings); Chris Dumm-LD (Rep. Hoefell); Wesley Dentar (Rep. Wilson); Dino Teppara (Rep. Wilson); Eric Dell (Rep. Wilson); Staffer from Rep. Ackerman (D-NY); Vivek Koppikar (Rep. Cummings)

Interns
Bindhu Vijayan, Divya Shenoy, the White House Initiative on Asian American Pacific Islanders. Distinguished people

Youseff Bodansky, director, Congressional Caucus on International Terrorism and Conventional Warfare; Alok Prasad, deputy chief of mission, Indian Embassy; Prasad Nair, ADSI; Sudhakar Shenoy, CEO, IMC Inc.; Miles Pomper, international correspondent, Congressional Quarterly; Kiran Pasricha, U.S. director, Confederation of Indian Industries; Dr. Bhupendra Patel, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York; Dr. Rajesh Kadian, author; Dr. Navin Shah, co-founder, Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin; Dr. Joy Cherian, former member of the EEOC; Phil Costopoulos, National Endowment for Democracy; Sharon Singh, former White House staffer; Dan Berstein and Dan Doktori, American Jewish Committee; Ms. Vasundara Varadan, National Science Foundation/Penn. State; Tejpal Chawla, Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Taskforce.

He said, “We always get quality people. When somebody who comes in this program, there is no question whether they can be quality person, they always are. They are really good.”

“All I can say is: Please keep it up, because we see a whole generation of people, having been interns, now getting involved politically and or are active like Kapil (referring to his one-time aide Kapil Sharma, who is now working for the Madison Group). I believe the next generation (of Indian-Americans) will get better involved,” Pallone said.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) said: “It is an exciting time to be on the Hill because everything happens around this time here. These next three weeks are going to be mind-boggling for most of you. And now you are going to see that we are in the process of winding down and go home to brace (ourselves) for re-elections; then comes the budget. Somehow we have to find ways to spend $3 trillion in three weeks. It is, indeed, an interesting time to be in this city.”

McDermott brought along a copy of a three-page letter addressed to Attorney General John Ashcroft by someone who planned to tour the Universal Studios in California. But an FBI agent came to question him and he had to miss the tour.

By reading out the letter, McDermott wanted to bring home to the interns why their job of handling mail is important. “If someone sits down and writes a three-page letter, he has got something on his mind. One of the main things that you learned in this experience is to think about how do we find out what people want. How do we find out what people think, and we are totally dependent on people like you in our office who read this kind of mail and come to us with ideas about what all should be changed and where justice had to be dealt with. Transmission of the idea that comes in the letter like this to a member of Congress is a very important job to do.”

Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said the IACPA’s is a great internship program that Congress had seen and it has “expanded bigger and bigger.” He recalled the role played by interns when Rep. Dan Burton (R-IND), years ago, unsuccessfully brought in the House an amendment to cut the low level of economic assistance that the United States made to India. He said, “Then, the IACPA’s interns got involved, got on the phones, and all of them got together and did a very sophisticated, intensive clip operation. We got the amendment defeated. They are actually among the best and brightest interns on the Hill. It is good to see the improvement in the quality of interns every year. It is kind of a role model.”

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NEV), who described her visit to India in January this year as a “life-changing experience,” said: “It is a magnificent country and it has a strong democracy, very much like what we have in this nation ---- the United States. And together, these two great democracies — the largest democracy in the world and the greatest democracy in the world — must work together in a common effort to spread democracy, spread liberties, spread rule of law across the planet, and I am very, very optimistic that we will be able to do so.”

Berkley, who was herself a student intern in Washington some three decades ago, however, said: “We can’t do all that without all of you and the fact that you are here interning in this nation’s capital is absolutely spectacular. I am excited to be here and to share this experience.”

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) said his state, South Carolina, has a huge Indian-American presence, especially in the hospitality business. He said his interest in India dates back to when his father, who was in the U.S. Air Force, was stationed in China. He used to travel to India. He remembered so well his mother and father recalling their experiences in India. “Even when they go on vacation to Caribbean, they will return and talk about the Indian population there,” he added.

He had a personal opportunity to know the Indian community when, many years ago, they began investing in the hospitality industry in South Carolina and he immediately got to know so many different Indian families and appreciated the community’s sincerity and hard work. He said they came from all over the world — from Tahiti, Uganda, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Canada — and made the United States their home. “Every year, I speak at the India Day celebrations in August in South Carolina. I have seen a growth from a situation when we had 100 people present at the function. Now 1,500 people come.”

The IACPA is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the participation of Indian Americans in public policy and the political process. Recently, IACPA has been extremely active in educating lawmakers and local law enforcement agencies in combating hate crimes and racial profiling following the terrorist acts of Sept. 11. Additionally, IACPA also hosts one of the most comprehensive summer internship programs for undergraduate students in Washington, D.C. Under the WLP, IACPA interns are placed in a six-week internship in congressional offices and federal agencies. Aside from the internship, the students engage in a two-week educational program on issues affecting the Indian-American community, taught by IACPA associates, public policymakers and community leaders.


 

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Military July 8, 2002
Lawmakers covering all their bases
By Gary Martin
Express-News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - With a wary eye toward the next round of base closures, South Texas lawmakers are quietly shoring up local military installations to make them less desirable targets for the budget ax.

Congress passed legislation, signed into law by President Bush, that calls for a round of deep cuts in 2005 to free up funds the Pentagon says will be better used for weapons and training.

But senators and congressmen from cities and states with a large military presence are resisting the politically painful process of eliminating installations that provide a huge economic boost to local economies.
And some are attacking the base closure law itself.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, took the Senate floor last month and cited costly blunders from previous rounds in her plea to the Pentagon to develop a more open evaluation of military installations before another series of cuts is conducted.

"A round of closures riddled with mistakes could be more costly than no closures at all," Hutchison said.

Hutchison has crafted an amendment, signed by 16 senators, that would force the Department of Defense to change procedures it used in previous rounds.

She has threatened to attach the language to defense spending bills if the Pentagon does not comply voluntarily.
The four previous rounds of closures - in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 - shuttered 97 major military installations and more than 200 smaller facilities.

The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, determined that the closures have saved $16.7 billion in operating expenses.
Those closures also will account for $6.6 billion in recurring savings each year for the next decade, the GAO said in a report released in April.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said another round of closures is critical for the Defense Department, which seeks to modify training and buy new weapons for the nation's war on terrorism.

"We need to be lean and ready," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. "We can't afford to be wasting money on unnecessary bases."
The Pentagon has said that every base will be evaluated for potential closure as it moves toward a final round that could eliminate as many as 100 more facilities.
Federal military spending in San Antonio, with four bases and two military medical centers, is estimated at more than $3 billion annually.
Kelly AFB, singled out in the 1995 round, was closed last year with the loss of 10,912 jobs.

Last month, the House and Senate passed defense-related measures that include new spending for Texas military installations - particularly those in South Texas, where the bulk of bases are located.
Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, tucked $3.5 million for the newly created Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security at Lackland into the defense appropriations bill.

Rodriguez, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also had inserted $5.8 million for a fitness center at Lackland.
"In this time of war, our national defense is our No. 1 priority," Rodriguez said.

Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, secured $8 million to replace an old administrative building at Laughlin AFB in Del Rio.

Hutchison used her clout as the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee for military construction to boost federal spending in Texas by nearly $100 million.

She inserted projects into the spending bill for nearly all South Texas bases, including a new research facility at Brooks AFB and a visitor center at Camp Bullis.

Total federal spending on military projects in Texas, contained in the Senate bill, totals $220 million for fiscal 2003, which begins Oct. 1. President Bush, in his budget submission to Congress, sought only $120 million for Texas military projects.

"Our focus is on quality of life for our military personnel and assuring that our National Guard and reserve have the training and equipment they need to sustain our war on terrorism," Hutchison said.
Hutchison said last month that Texas communities would be wise to begin lobbying efforts now to convince Pentagon officials of the importance of local installations.

"If we take hits, they will be small hits," she said.
San Antonio business leaders hope to raise $1 million for their lobbying effort to protect Brooks AFB, Fort Sam Houston and other potentially vulnerable bases from a 2005 closure commission.

Hutchison, meanwhile, has put the Pentagon on notice that she has support for change in the way the Pentagon ranks and evaluates bases for closure.

In 1995, San Antonio leaders were dumbfounded when Kelly was ranked at the bottom of aircraft repair depots and selected for closure. That ranking came just two years after the Pentagon had listed Kelly as one of the top three facilities in the same category.

Hutchison has accused the Pentagon of manipulating base closure criteria for political expediency, and criticized former closure commissions for their lack of military expertise, which has led to "costly blunders."
She cited the 1995 commission order to close Reese AFB, a pilot training installation in Lubbock.

Two years later, after the Air Force complained of a pilot shortage, Congress was called upon to expand Moody AFB in Georgia to replace capability lost at Reese.

"We can reduce some of the anxiety communities will experience as we near 2005," Hutchison said in her Senate floor speech.
gmartin@express-news.net
07/08/2002

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C-5 modernization takes first step

By 2nd Lt. Tracy Bunko
Aeronautical Systems Center Public Affairs

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AMCNS) - The first aircraft to be modified under the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., facility was inducted June 12, taking the first tangible step in keeping the cargo giant flying another 40 years.

The aircraft, a B model from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., is one of two C-5 avionics upgrades to be tested before being implemented throughout the rest of the fleet. The upgrades also will be tested on an older-model C-5A, scheduled for induction into AMP later this month.


A line of C-5 Galaxy cargo aircraft await departure Dec. 10 from Moron Air Base, Spain. These massive aircraft have been employed in moving the personnel, equipment, and supplies which keep Operation Enduring Freedom running at its peak. Avionics modernization has started on the first C-5 to keep it flying another 40 years. (Photo by Staff Sgt. P.J. Farlin)
"With the advanced avionics provided under AMP, the Air Force can meet airspace requirements anywhere in the world, and it allows us to move the warfighter and critical combat equipment faster and more efficiently," said Col. Jim "Cuda" Lynch, development system manager for the C-5 modernization program.

It's in this arena that Gen. John Handy, U.S. Transportation Command commander in chief and Air Mobility Command commander said the Air Force has a critical need. The 2005 Mobility Requirements Study sets the minimum airlift needed by 2005 at 54.5 million ton miles per day - compared to today's capability of less than 46 million. A ton mile, according to AMC officials, is the amount of airlift needed to move one ton of cargo, equipment or passengers one mile.

According to Handy, the C-5 modernization is one of the actions needed to bring U.S. airlift capability up to the study's recommended requirement. C-5s have carried about 46 percent of the intertheater cargo on only about 29 percent of the missions flown in Operation Enduring Freedom.

"The C-5s have been incredible work horses, bringing in huge amounts of cargo and passengers," he said.

Air Force officials said they hope to include up to 126 aircraft in the C-5 AMP, part of an overall upgrade effort managed by the C-5 Development System Office here; a support program that U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. John Jumper, said "continues to set the standard for weapon system management."

AMP includes installing the Terrain Awareness and Warning System and the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System. The Secretary of Defense directed the navigation and safety equipment be developed and implemented after U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others died April 3, 1996 in a U.S. Air Force airplane crash outside Dubrovnik, Croatia. Brown was leading a delegation of U.S. business and banking executives on a three-day economic tour of the Balkans when his plane slammed into a mountain ridge.

Lynch says the equipment has already helped avert two potential accidents.

"The Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, has been installed and fielded on 119 C-5s - ahead of the rest of the AMP components," he said. "In two incidents, C-5 crews reported that TCAS warned them of aircraft dangerously close and directed them to maneuver to avoid collision."

Also included in the upgrades is new communication, navigation and surveillance equipment to meet the FAA's Global Air Traffic Management requirements, an all-weather flight control system, and software improvements to provide connectivity to the Mobility Command and Control System called Mobility 2000 or M2K.

The second phase of the C-5 modernization program is the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program, which depends on successfully completing AMP. The program will reduce the need for engine removals, decrease noise and emissions and increase the fleet's climb and payload capability. In addition, RERP is designed to increase reliability, maintainability and availability of the C-5 while reducing ownership costs by reducing maintenance man-hours, and the need for spare parts, officials said.

Propulsion initiatives under RERP will install new turbofan engines, pylons, thrust reversers and wing attachment fittings. Also, officials said the program will improve the aircraft's electrical, hydraulic, fuel, fire suppression and pressurization subsystems as well as auxiliary power units, air conditioning systems, landing gear and the airframe.

Lynch said the AMP and RERP programs were integrated in January to more efficiently implement the overall modernization effort.

"An integrated program allows us to do what we have always envisioned for the C-5 -- offer a single, integrated modernization effort for the fleet," he said. "We're confident these programs will perform well and we're firm in our belief that modernizing the entire C-5 fleet represents the best fiscal value for the Air Force."

Lynch pointed out that the Air Force can't afford not to modernize the fleet, saying, "With almost 35,000 cubic feet of cargo space, some warfighting equipment can only be carried by the C-5.

The entire effort to modernize the C-5 will cost about $13 billion," he added, "and continue fleet operations through 2040. Purchasing additional aircraft to replace the cargo-carrying capability of the C-5 could cost up to $38 billion." (Courtesy Air Force Materiel Command

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July 10, 2002
Council reviews recommendations to save Travis
By Ian Thompson

FAIRFIELD - While Fairfield has made a name for itself championing Travis Air Force Base's needs, there is a lot more to be done to keep the area's largest employer viable.

Fairfield's lobbyists, Madison Government Affairs, laid out a checklist of recommendations before a City Council study session Tuesday that would strengthen the base militarily and make it more cost-efficient.

The recommendations are part of a report called the Travis Enhancement Report which is expected to come to the council later this summer.
Worries about Travis AFB's future spurred Fairfield to get its Washington-based lobbying firm, Madison Government Affairs, to put together a plan on how best to keep Travis AFB viable and off an upcoming base closure list.

The report was funded by a state $50,000 Defense Retention grant and contributions from Vallejo, Vacaville, Solano County, Solano Community College and the Solano Economic Development Corp.

Some recommendations, such as the push to speed up the modernization of the C-5 Galaxy jet transport and getting C-17 Globemasters stationed at Travis AFB, are already under way.

"We need both aircraft at Travis," Madison representative Paul Hirsch said, commenting on the report's recommendations that advocated speeding up the C-5 modernization funding and getting more C-17s based here.

Getting all of Solano County's leaders to create a single regional agenda of issues and objectives was "vitally important," according to Hirsch.
Hirsch called the need to build more affordable housing for Travis AFB military people an ongoing concern and one the Department of Defense needs to be convinced to solve.

Fairfield was lauded for its part in buying part of the Wilcox Ranch to allow the base to expand if needed, but Hirsch said the city needs to continue ensuring land use around Travis AFB doesn't adversely impact it.
Hirsch recommended Fairfield, Suisun City and Solano County look into closing the unused county roads east of the base "to provide added security to the base."

The 60th Aerial Port Squadron's facilities need to be upgraded and the railroad spur leading to the base should be repaired and expanded, Hirsch said.

Bringing more missions to Travis AFB, such as moving a Coast Guard C-130 Search and Rescue squadron and advocating establishing a Federal Emergency Management Agency training facility here, would make the base harder to close.

Exploring the possibility of joint use of the base was resurrected as offering "a potential for reducing the cost of running the Air Force base," Hirsch said.

With the Air Force considering replacement of the aging KC-135 air tankers, Hirsch recommended lobbying to get some of the new air refueling aircraft based at Travis AFB.
To keep community support of the base visible, efforts such as a program touting Travis AFB's benefits, hosting a Congressional appreciation days on base, and having a similar event at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott AFB, Ill., were recommended.

"Constant visibility is important," Hirsch said.

The council gave the recommendations thumbs up with Councilwoman Marilyn Farley calling it "a very thorough job."

"I am glad we are on the right track," Councilman John English said.
Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

 

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Vacaville city manager will retire at year's end
By Ian Thompson

VACAVILLE -- City Manager John Thompson will end 23 years of service to the City of Vacaville when he retires Dec. 31, he announced late Tuesday night.

"After 23-plus years in even this, the best city in California, I'm ready for a break," Thompson wrote in a letter he handed the City Council.
Thompson, 53, pondered the move for awhile, calling it "an especially tough decision because I continue to enjoy most aspects of the job, appreciate the continuing support I receive from the City Council, am proud of what the organization has accomplished, still excited about our future and enjoy good health."

As for his plans after Dec. 31, he simply will spend some time "to be still" and ponder what he wants to do next.

Thompson has been Vacaville's city manager since 1984. He took over for former city manager Walter Graham, who died June 27. Graham hired Thompson in 1979 as an assistant city manager. Before that, he worked for the cities of Sacramento and Salinas, and with the Legislative Analysts Office in the Legislature.

Thompson picked Dec. 31, partly because council elections are in November and the new council should pick Thompson's successor. Also, the early notification will provide sufficient time for a smooth transition.
As for the city's future, "there is still a lot of work to do; always has been, always will be," Thompson said.

"For the most part, things are in very good shape now and there are more opportunities than threats on Vacaville's horizon," Thompson said. "It is a source of comfort knowing I won't be leaving a situation in turmoil."

Councilmembers weren't surprised by his announcement, but supported his move.

"I can understand why he wants to spend some time with his family and do other things," Councilwoman Rischa Slade said.

Fleming called Thompson "a great city manager" who was also active statewide with the League of California Cities and the City Managers Association.

"He was sought out for advice by city managers statewide," Fleming said. "He was a personal friend. He and I talked about virtually everything."
Thompson was a key player in the city's redevelopment efforts for projects such as the Basic Vegetable site, the Creekwalk and bringing businesses such as Genentech, Alza and Chiron to Vacaville, Fleming said.

Thompson's contributions "will go down in history as taking a city and guiding it towards the quality of life that we now enjoy in the city of Vacaville," Councilwoman Pauline Clancy said.

Councilman Rob Wood called his leadership "exemplary," saying he "was very instrumental in the whole concept of redevelopment and promoted a real teamwork environment."

"He has done so many things for the city of Vacaville and has a real ability to sit down with people and mediate a solution," Slade said.
Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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More Lift Needed, Avers U.S. Transportation Chief

by Harold Kennedy

U.S. Air Force strategic airlifters are prepared to conduct “any level of operations” necessary for the next phase of the war on terrorism, according to Air Force Gen. John W. Handy, commander in chief of the U.S. Transportation Command and commander of the Air Mobility Command. In the long run, however, more aircraft will be required, he told National Defense.

The Transportation Command is responsible for strategic air, land and sea transportation of all U.S. military services throughout the world. Headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., it includes the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, the Navy’s Military Sealift Command and the Army’s Military Traffic management Command. In military parlance, Handy is “dual-hatted;” he heads both the Transportation Command and the AMC.

During the war in Afghanistan, the airlifters have been able to pace themselves, Handy said, so that he does not see a need to pause for reconstitution. “I would characterize that as not a high level or serious concern, because we, in fact, have not had to defer major maintenance as we’ve gone through this entire process,” he said. “To the greatest extent possible, we’ve been able to get aircraft back to home station and [give] appropriate maintenance.”

Thus far in the war, Handy said, the airlifters have performed “extraordinarily well,” in transporting personnel, equipment and supplies. “All of the feedback that we’ve hand from the other CINCs (war-fighting commanders) has been glowing,” he said.

Because Afghanistan is a landlocked country, almost everything that the war fighters initially needed went in “almost exclusively” by air, he said. During the first six months of the war, U.S. transports:


Flew more than 2,900 airlift missions, exceeding 70,000 hours in the air.


Moved more than 46,000 troops and 90,000 tons of cargo.


Delivered 2.5 million humanitarian daily rations, 816 tons of wheat and 73,000 blankets to Afghanistan.

During that same period, tankers flew 1,500 refueling missions to help U.S.-based aircraft reach their destinations in Central Asia.

The heavy lifting, he noted, was done by the Air Force’s newest transports, the massive C-17 Globemaster IIIs, which flew 47 percent of all airlift missions into the theater. The C-5B Galaxies—which are bigger, but more than three decades old—accounted for 29 percent of missions into the region. Once in-theater, C-5 cargo was transferred to C-17s and C-130s, which could land on the short, austere runways of Afghanistan.

Allies—including British, Belgian, Canadian, Dutch, French, Norwegians and Spanish—also flew air-transport missions, using C-130s primarily, Handy said. The British, he noted, have leased four C-17s.

Commercial air cargo, including Soviet-designed An-124 Condors, conducted 8 percent of the flights, he said. The An-124s, even larger than U.S. C-5s, are operated now by Russian and Ukrainian companies, Handy pointed out.

Just a few years ago, the United States never would have considered using Soviet assets, Handy acknowledged, but he added: “The world has changed. The Soviet Union is dead, and now we even have contacts with businesses in former Soviet republics.”

The United States sought allied and commercial contributions, because it does not have the airlift and refueling capability that it needs, Handy said. “It’s a fact that we have shortfalls both in airlift and refueling,” he said. “That’s an honest fact.”

This spring, Handy said, the Air Force presented members of Congress with a so-called Global Mobility Roadmap, outlining the service’s air mobility needs and how it proposes to meet them.


Minimum Requirements

Right now, the United States does not have enough airlift to meet the minimum requirements set in a recent study of the Defense Department’s transportation system, called Mobility Requirements Study 2005, he noted.

That study estimated that, by 2005, the armed services will need a minimum of 54.5 million ton miles in strategic airlift per day from the active and reserve components of the AMC and commercial airliners in the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet. Today’s capability is less than 46 million ton miles per day, Handy said. “The shortfall is dramatic,” he said.

To fill the gap, he said, the AMC needs more C-17s and modernized C-5s, C-130s and tankers. This year, Congress approved procurement of 60 additional C-17s, which will bring the total number to 180. But that won’t be enough, Handy said. “We need at least 222 C-17s to meet the minimum requirements of MRS-05,” he said. The additional C-17s are needed to replace the venerable C-141 Starlifter, which is scheduled for retirement in the fall of 2006.

“The C-17 is remarkable in its capability,” Handy said. With a length of 174 feet, it can carry up to 170,900 pounds of cargo, including a 70-ton M-1 Abrams tank. It can airdrop 102 paratroops and equipment. With in-flight refueling, it can reach almost any spot on the globe, he noted.

Despite its bulk, Handy said, the C-17 can take off and land at small, unimproved airfields, with runways as short as 3,000 feet and only 90 feet wide. Even on such narrow runways, the C-17 can turn around, using its three-point star turn and backing capability, “just like driving a car,” he explained.

“It can get into just about any strip where a C-130 can land,” said Handy. In Afghanistan, for example, C-17s conducted nighttime, combat dirt landings, using night-vision goggles, to deliver reinforcements and cargo to the Marines at Camp Rhino.

The United States also needs to modernize its existing fleet of 126 C-5s, Handy said. “The C-5s have been incredible work horses, bringing in huge amounts of cargo and passengers,” he told a group of Washington defense writers.

Because the C-5 can handle 270,000 pounds of cargo—nearly 100,000 more than the C-17—it has been used to move “large numbers of assets” from the continental United States to the war zone, Handy said. Because they require a hardened runway at least 4,900 feet long, he said, C-5s are flown to midway points, primarily in Germany, Spain and Diego Garcia, where cargo and personnel are transferred to C-17s and flown into the theater.

The C-5s, however, are aging. The first ones—the 76 C-5As—are more than 30 years old and beginning to encounter problems with systems obsolescence, corrosion and reliability. In 1998, maintenance inspections

found severe cracks in the horizontal stabilizer tie boxes of six out of seven C-5As inspected.

To fix such problems, the Air Force has embarked upon a two-phase program. In 1999, it awarded a $454 million contract—for an avionics modernization program—to the C-5’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, of Marietta, Ga. Under the terms of the contract, Lockheed will update the flight-control, communications and navigation systems and instrument displays.

Then, in 2001, the Air Force gave Lockheed a $1.1 billion contract to begin the system development phase of the C-5 reliability enhancement and reengining program, or RERP.

During the RERP, Lockheed will upgrade the C-5s with modern, commercial engines and systems and structural adjustments intended to make the aircraft viable until at least 2040. During the initial, seven-year phase of the RERP, Lockheed will develop its modernization strategy and demonstrate it on four C-5 aircraft. If the Air Force likes the results, it can award a modernization contract for the entire C-5 fleet.

The Air Force also is updating its four-decade-old C-130s, Handy explained. In 2001, the service selected the Boeing Company, of St. Louis, Mo., to perform a $4 billion avionics modernization for approximately 500 C-130s.

All of the 1950s-era analog instruments with round dials will be replaced with standard, flat-panel, digital displays. A new heads-up display will allow pilots to gather information while looking outside the cockpit.

Other upgrades include modern multi-function radar, new communications systems, a flight-management system and a single air-data computer to replace the current three variants. In addition, new instruments will be made compatible with night-vision goggles.

Installation is scheduled to begin in 2004 and continue through 2014, according to Boeing spokesman Paul Guse.

Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers and KC-10A Extenders struggled to meet the in-flight refueling needs of U.S. and coalition aircraft, especially during the early days of the Afghan war, Handy said. They got help from British and Turkish refuelers, he noted.

The Air Force has 540 KC-135s, which date back to 1957, and 59 KC-10s, which were introduced in 1981. In 1998, the service signed contracts worth $2.5 billion for their manufacturer, Boeing, to take over depot-level maintenance for both aircraft. The majority of the work is being performed at the Boeing Aerospace Support Center in San Antonio, Texas.

Currently, the Air Force is negotiating with Boeing to lease up to 100 Boeing 767 aircraft for 10 years and convert them into tankers as the first step in replacing the entire KC-135 fleet. This move—estimated to cost $26 billion—would save the Air Force an estimated $3 billion in reduced operating and maintenance costs over the next few years, according to U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in whose state the work would be performed.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, cited studies by the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office finding that the Air Force lease proposal would be too expensive. The OMB study declared that leasing would cost nearly 10 times the cost of upgrading the current fleet of KC-135s. The CBO report said that leasing would be “significantly more expensive” than a direct purchase of the 767s.

In another complication, Airbus—the European aircraft manufacturer—also is seeking to compete for the deal.

No matter which manufacturer is selected, Handy argued, leasing the 767s, rather than buying them, could be an attractive way of holding down up-front costs. “Let me ask you a question,” he proposed to reporters. “Why do you lease? Because you don’t have the money to buy a Mercedes or a Dodge. Your up-front money costs are dramatic. Leasing is a way to spread out this cost over a period of time. That is why people lease today.”

Thus far, however, McCain seems to be winning the debate. In May, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved his proposal—an amendment to the 2003 Defense Authorization Bill—that the Air Force be required to obtain specific congressional authorization and appropriation of funds before entering into any lease for B-767s.

 

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In War Effort, U.S. Relies on Strategic Airlifts
Air Mobility Fleet Flies Cargo, Troops to World's Tight Spots

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 24, 2002;

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Eight thousand miles from Afghanistan, Maj. Mark Shaw's telephone rang late one night in early March. Three Apache helicopters had been riddled with bullets during the opening hours of a U.S. offensive against al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan, and the Army wanted spares fast.

"I need you to assemble one of your crews," Col. Kenneth R. Carson, commander of the 436th Operations Group, told Shaw.

Shaw flies C-5 Galaxies for the Air Mobility Command -- the Air Force equivalent of Federal Express. In fact, his commanders have spent hours exchanging ideas and trading tips with FedEx executives.

Twenty-nine hours after his phone rang, Shaw's crew landed a giant C-5 at Rhein Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany. The plane was laden with Apache maintenance gear and dozens of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division picked up at Fort Campbell, Ky., heading for Afghanistan.

By the time the aircraft touched down, a C-17 Globemaster had lifted off from Frankfurt en route to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, carrying the first two replacement Apaches. It landed 33 hours and 20 minutes after Shaw and the other crew chiefs were alerted in the middle of the night.

"Churchill had a quote, 'Transport is the stem of the rose,' " Carson said in a recent interview. "It's been true time and time again -- the Berlin Airlift, Vietnam, the Gulf War and now Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, a landlocked country. Everything came in that country through the air -- bombs, beans and bullets."

Hauling six-ton helicopters to the other side of the planet in time to help U.S. forces on the battlefield was the pinnacle of accomplishment in an airlift war of historic proportions. The conflict in Afghanistan is the first in U.S. history in which America moved its war machine overseas entirely by air.

But if the war in Afghanistan has been the ultimate expression of the military adage, "amateurs talk tactics, pros talk logistics," it has also sounded a warning.

The distant conflict has stressed the nation's air mobility fleet, leaving Air Force officials to ponder what would happen in the event of a far larger conflict, such as an invasion of Iraq -- or simultaneous operations the size of the Afghan campaign.

The military defines its need for airlift using the arcane metric of 54.5 million ton miles a day -- a ton mile is the ability to airlift one ton one mile. If the military concentrated that much global airlift power on flying Apaches to Afghanistan, it could take 160 a day from the United States -- every day of the year.

But the military is 10 million to 15 million ton miles short of its 54.5 million requirement, which is under review by the Pentagon and likely will go up in light of the experience in Afghanistan, according to Gen. John W. Handy, head of the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

To close the gap, the military is buying $198 million C-17s at a rate of more than one per month, having invested $30 billion in airlift capabilities over the past 15 years, with $20 billion more earmarked over the next five.

The future investment includes money to buy 60, and possibly 100, more C-17s in addition to the 120 already being delivered. A plan to replace engines and avionics on the aging C-5 fleet is also in place. The Air Force wants to buy 150 more C-130J Hercules -- tactical airlifters that move troops and equipment from base to base once the strategic C-5s and C-17s haul them across oceans.

"The importance of airlift probably has more prominence now than at any time since the Berlin Airlift for two basic reasons -- we have fewer forces positioned overseas, and we're operating in far more obscure places, like the Balkans and Afghanistan," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, who has ties to the Pentagon and leading defense contractors.

By the time U.S. forces arrived last fall, Afghanistan's infrastructure was in tatters. A greater concern was that land-locked Afghanistan is so far away from the United States and its major overseas bases that most of the airlift missions -- and all of the attack sorties -- required mid-air refueling.

The ability to refuel transport aircraft in midair is but one way the military's strategic airlift system differs from FedEx, United Parcel Service and other global air cargo companies, which will earn more than $1.4 billion this year flying the military's more conventional cargo.

Retired Air Force Gen. Walter Kross, former head of the U.S. Transportation Command and a close friend of FedEx Chairman Frederick W. Smith, said the commercial carriers aren't global in the way the U.S. military is.

"They cover about 60 percent of the earth, and they're working on the other 40 percent," Kross said. "They don't go to Antarctica or Afghanistan. With the Department of Defense, it's global, and the ugly stuff usually has to go to the armpit of the earth -- when you absolutely, positively have to get it there."

The strategic airlift has its roots in the Kennedy administration's doctrine of "flexible response," which emphasized, in the face of nuclear stalemate, the ability to rapidly move conventional forces anywhere in the world.

The result was the C-5, the first "truly gigantic airplane," according to one Air Force study. It has a cargo compartment longer than the Wright brothers' first flight and a gas tank the size of a 25-meter swimming pool.

Entering service in 1969, the aircraft revolutionized the movement of military forces. Its high wings provide more lift than those of a Boeing 747, enabling it to land on shorter runways, and its drive-though cargo-loading capabilities enable armored vehicles to drive in through rear cargo doors and drive out through a front hatch that lifts up over the cockpit.

The nation's fleet of 126 C-5s is old and tired, with only 60 percent of the fleet capable of flying missions at any given time. But it remains a critical workhorse in the airlift fleet, capable of carrying 270,000 pounds of cargo -- 100,000 more than the newer C-17s. Air Force officials hope the program to put new engines and avionics into the aircraft can keep it flying until 2040.

Carson and his fellow C-5 pilots and crew members based at Dover remain unfailingly loyal to the plane.

"It's a great plane -- it's had a role for 30 years, and it moves massive amounts of cargo long distances," said Carson, 43, a 21-year Air Force veteran with 4,400 cockpit hours. He spoke from the flight deck of a C-5 shortly after it lifted off one day last month for Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Its load was relatively light at 105,267 pounds, the equivalent of 35 automobiles, bound for a newly established coalition air base in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Huge connex containers held everything from transformers to toilet paper. There was even a 3,300-pound pallet filled with donated paperback novels for U.S. troops overseas.

"It's incredible that this thing gets off the ground," said Tech Sgt. Larry Williams, 31, one of the plane's loadmasters. "You put three or four C-5s down somewhere, you've got a considerable force to deal with."

C-5 cargo and troops bound for Afghanistan -- like the Apache maintenance gear and soldiers hauled in a hurry from Fort Campbell by Shaw's Dover-based crew -- typically switch planes and board C-17s at Rhein Main Air Base for the final leg into Afghanistan. Rhein Main turned into a hub for the C-17 last fall.

The Air Force began developing the C-17 in the early 1980s as the next step in strategic airlift -- a wide-body jet that could carry outsized cargo like tanks into small air fields that were inaccessible to the C-5s.

The aircraft, which entered service in 1993, is made of new lightweight composite materials and employs advanced wing technology, including "blown flaps" that make use of engine exhaust for increased lift. The plane thus can land on short, dirt runways previously accessible only to the much smaller C-130 transport.

Combining the strategic lift capabilities of the C-5 with the tactical agility of the C-130, the C-17 ferried the first Marines to the dirt runway of Camp Rhino southwest of Kandahar in November. It handled the spare Apaches for Operation Anaconda, the offensive against al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan in March, and thousands of tons of cargo in between.

Since tanker aircraft cannot land on Afghanistan's damaged and shortened runways, the C-17 has even started fulfilling a modified tanker mission. It is gassing up in midair so that it can land at Bagram air base north of Kabul with its gas tanks full and deposit thousands of gallons of fuel to helicopters operating inside the country.

"We'd go in there every day for gas missions," said Lt. Dave Hill, 25, a C-17 pilot with the 15th Airlift Squadron out of Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. "And sometimes when we went in with cargo, we'd still give them gas. In one sortie, we can take as much as three times more than a C-130 -- and land on the same airfields that they do."

There are intense rivalries between C-5, C-17 and C-130 airlift pilots, just as there are between KC-10 and KC-135 tanker pilots on the refueling side of the Air Mobility Command.

But it is the combination of all those aircraft -- more than 1,300 in all -- that gives the Pentagon the ability to project power that no country can match.

"It's not glamorous," retired Gen. Charles T. Robinson Jr., then head of the U.S. Transportation Command, told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee a little over a year ago. "We don't got bombs. It's just that no bombs get dropped until we act first. Nothing happens until something moves."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

 

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Is there a need for Fort Story?


VIRGINIA BEACH -- Fort Story lost another reason to exist Tuesday.
Without fanfare, a handful of soldiers inspected and then handed off for auction two 1950s-era amphibious tractors. They were the last of the 309th Transportation Detachment, a unit that for 34 years drove LARC-60 amphibious trucks and helped keep the base active and viable.

Touted by the Army as an essential beachfront training ground, Fort Story has lost a third of its personnel since the last round of federal base closings. Virginian-Pilot file photo.

In September, the detachment was deactivated.

That unit, and another deactivated in 1994, were key reasons the Bayside fort has survived calls for its closure.

With one-third fewer solidiers stationed at the base than when it survived the last round of closings, the Army is again defending its need to occupy Fort Story's 1,451 acres, nestled between the Chesapeake and the Atlantic at Cape Henry.

The Army still deems the post essential for training its ship-to-shore supply units. But as momentum gathers for a new round of base closings in 2005, the service is running out of reasons to keep Fort Story open.

The Army's new best bet is that it is the Army's only beachfront training area. The fort's bay and ocean frontage allows soldiers to practice transferring cargo from ships to various types of shores.

The fort also allows the Army to hold large-scale annual training exercises, said Lt. Col. Brian Anderson, commanding officer of the 11th Transportation Battalion, the only large Army unit left at Fort Story.

Similar large exercises are held at places such as the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Anderson said.

In addition to the Army's 11th Transportation Battalion, the base houses a Marine Corps reconnaissance training unit and a pair of Navy explosive ordnance disposal commands.

About 1,261 active-duty military personnel work at the fort, which has a $70.2 million payroll. Most of the soldiers belong to the 11th, which operates port equipment, drives forklifts and turns seawater into drinking water.

Fort Story was built in 1914 for coastal defense. The Army expanded the base by condemning and then buying 750 acres in 1943.

The government bought the last Fort Story parcel in 1962. In total, it paid $802,859 for the post's 1,451 acres.

Fort Story's land and buildings are worth $219.5 million, said Virginia Beach assessor J.D. Banagan, up from $72.5 million in 1981, according to published reports.

Called by some ``the best-kept secret in the Army,'' Fort Story is also a playground for active-duty service members and about 15,000 military retirees who were expected to use the post's beaches and facilities this fiscal year.

Facilities, none of which are open to the general public, include the beachfront Cape Henry Inn, which rents 50 hotel rooms, 16 cottages and eight bungalows, and an Army Travel Camp, which boasts 24 improved camp sites, three camping cabins, 13 log cabins and an equipment-rental outlet.

Located in a city that has been clamoring for a first-class beach resort, Fort Story has many potential nonmilitary uses, some developers say.

``It is one of the most prime, pristine properties on the East Coast,'' said Kris Inderlied, director of marketing and business development for Armada/Hoffler Holding Co., which owns a development company and construction firm.

Some envision a golf resort that mixes a top-notch hotel, time shares and permanent residences nestled in landscaped neighborhoods separated by preserved woodlands, nature trails and frontage on the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

The Army itself spent much of the past decade envisioning a 220-acre golf course on the base.

The Army pitched a public-private partnership that would raise money for the base's welfare fund and sales taxes for Virginia Beach. The Army nixed the idea last year because of environmental concerns and the need for training space, Army spokeswoman Patti Bielling said.

This year's defense budget called for a commission to recommend base closures in 2005. President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a bevy of lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., want the services to shutter unneeded bases.

Though the previous four rounds of base closures reduced the number of bases by 20 percent, the overall size of the armed forces has dropped 35 percent, indicating further room for base reduction.

The Pentagon's push toward joint operations and increased efficiency could make base-sharing between services more widespread.

Some Navy and Marine Corps units train at Fort Story, and Anderson said he hopes more units based elsewhere see the fort as the premier training site that the Army does and start using it more.

``We're not the largest installation in Hampton Roads, so we tend to get overlooked,'' Anderson said. ``We don't mind. We just continue to do our business in the peacefulnees of Fort Story.''


News researcher Ann Kinken Johnson contributed to this report. Reach Dennis O'Brien at dobrien@pilotonline.com or 446-2355.

 

 

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PUBLISHED WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002

Military communities mobilize against base closures

From staff and wire reports


WASHINGTON - The next round of military base closings is three years away, but military-reliant states and towns are mobilizing to save their bases.

The strategy includes seeking local money for Pentagon needs, hiring consultants and making communities more hospitable to military families.

An estimated 20 states have formed base-saving task forces, according to the National Association of Installation Developers, a military-base, economic-development group. Some towns and states never disbanded task forces from the last round seven years ago.

"They're starting earlier, thinking about these things ahead of time," said Tim Ford, deputy executive director of the base development association.

Among those who didn't stop working since 1995's round of base closures is Northwest Florida's committee.

The committee - charged with protecting Pensacola Naval Air Station, Corry Station, Saufley Field and Whiting Field Naval Air Stati! on - regrouped into the Military Regional Oversight Committee, a team of businessmen and politicians from Escambia and Santa Rosa counties who have met quarterly since then.

"We felt it was important to keep this group involved and active because we knew that round wasn't the end," said Vann Goodloe, committee member and vice president of the Pensacola Area Chamber of Commerce.

The 16-person group joined a delegation of Northwest Floridians on a trip to Washington, D.C., last month to discuss the future of local bases with senior officials in Congress and the Pentagon.

The group points to several signs of Northwest Florida's well-being:

The House of Representatives budgeted $60 million for the T-6A Texan, the Navy's new training plane, which is scheduled to arrive in Pensacola by year's end.

Navy officials have hinted local bases could benefit from the closure of the bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Florida bases received a large perc! entage of $158 million in improvements from the Atlantic Fleet in March, and last month, Atlantic Fleet Commander In Chief Adm. Robert J. Natter asked Congress for $2.1 million to dredge the channel leading to Pensacola Naval Air Station so the base could receive aircraft carriers.

During an April trip to the air station, Navy Secretary Gordon England said Pensacola was a "very important place" for the Navy and ensured locals there were no plans to move the Chief of Naval Education and Training, one of the air station's largest commands.

"Things are going to ramp up pretty fast heading into the new year," Goodloe said. "The worst thing we can do is become complacent. We have to prepare and anticipate the future."

The Pentagon wants to close as many as 100 of its 398 installations. Defense officials estimate they could save $3.5 billion a year by closing unneeded bases - money that could be better spent fighting the war on terrorism.

The fight to s! ave military bases is likely to be fierce this time. Overruling Pentagon wishes for a 2003 round, Congress delayed the next round until 2005.

It's probably the last round, so investing in saving a base now will pay off. After four previous rounds that shut 97 major bases, "we're cutting into bone now," said Paul Hirsch, a Washington consultant hired by six communities, including Northwest Florida, to try to save their bases.

"There are going to be some bases that get closed that people don't believe in their wildest dreams are going to close," said Hirsch, a former analyst for the 1991 commission. "That's going to make it really, really intense."

As in previous rounds, the Pentagon will submit a list of bases it wants closed to a Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The commission will review and possibly revise the list, then send it to the president and Congress, both of which must accept or reject the entire list.

Among the factors the Pent! agon will consider: whether the base fits with the military threats facing the nation for the next 20 years; how efficiently the base accomplishes its mission; ensuring bases in a variety of climates and terrain; how well the base is supported by the community and the economic impact on local towns; and whether the base is restricted by suburban sprawl or local environmental laws.

Washington consultant S. Steven Karalekas is working for a Corpus Christi, Texas, base-protection task force, and he plans to stress the need for a military presence given the vulnerability of that area's refineries and pipelines to terrorism.

"This homeland security changes the whole picture in a lot of areas of country - in ports, in border areas - where the military is going to play a much greater role," he said.

Because some of the base-protection task forces will inevitably fail, Ford of the base economic development group suggests officials also start to ask a different q! uestion: What to do if the base closes?

"Start thinking about your plan B," he said, "about how you might reuse the base."

 

What's next

The four rounds of base closings between 1988 and 1995 reduced the military's infrastructure about 20 percent.

The Base Realignment and Closure commissions have shut down about 352 facilities, including 97 major ones (where there were more than 300 civilian employees). An additional 145 bases were "realigned," meaning they lost some of their jobs.


Deadlines for the 2005 round:

February 2004: The secretary of defense must submit to Congress a detailed force structure plan including how many Army divisions or Navy ships it needs and how many installations.

March 2005: The president announces the nine members of the BRAC commission.

May 2005: The secretary of defense submits a list of bases to be closed to the commission, as well as Congress and the public.

September 2005: The commission submits its list of base closures to the president. He has 15 days to approve or reject the entire list. If he accepts it, Congress has 45 days to approve or reject the entire list. If the president rejects the BRAC list, the commission has 30 days to submit another.


Gannett News Service

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The Wriggling, Fluttering Museum
By Amy Brecount White
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, May 24, 2002; Page WE57

WITHIN moments of entering the aviary, my sharp-eyed 7-year-old spotted one of his favorite birds. "Look, Mom," said David, "a bluebird, a real bluebird."

Usually seen as a flash of intense blue, not one, but two, real live bluebirds were mere feet away from us, calmly perched on the interior trees of the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, Va. No glass or screen separated us. The gurgle of flowing water and the distinct call of the bobwhite made the two-story aviary seem as alive as any field or mountaintop. From the balcony we could see directly into the trees, so there were few places for these birds to hide. (Most had been injured or abandoned; none of the museum's animals were taken from the wild.) Being backyard bird enthusiasts, David and I were delighted to spy birds we'd seen only in pictures: an evening grosbeak, a clapper rail, a killdeer.
True to its name, the Virginia Living Museum is full of things that wriggle, jump, glide and flutter. Focusing on species native to Virginia and the Eastern Coastal Plains region, the museum bills itself as a combination "native wildlife park, science museum, aquarium, botanical preserve and planetarium."

The museum is tightly-packed and rewards close study. David and I were amazed by the diversity of habitat and animal life within one commonwealth. An excellent exhibit on the James River features four tanks that showcase the life of the river. Peering into the cooler "mountainous" waters, we spied brook trout and a prehistoric-looking amphibian called a hellbender. The Piedmont region had abundant bullfrogs, catfish, bluegills and yellow perch, while the coastal plain tank offered burrfish and striped bass. Spot, flounder and black drum swam the warmer coastal waters. It was a great lesson on how geography and temperature influence habitat.

A series of clear plastic cylinders takes visitors on a walk through 1,500 million years of Virginia prehistory. We peered into the first cylinder at fuzzy green algae, an early life form. Tube worms, anemones and horseshoe crabs showed us how life grew more sophisticated.
At the museum's small touch tank, David held a whelk's shell and a sea star, then moved quickly to a hallway full of small animals displayed at kid level. He soon slowed to make sure he didn't miss anything from the live kestral, which can spot a juicy grasshopper a mile away, to nearly invisible grass shrimp. The displays are far from sensationalistic, but that drew our attention more clearly to the sensational aspects of the animals themselves. I paused to marvel at seahorses, their tiny fins fluttering in the eelgrass.

The museum is not flashy, but it may become just that. Over the next few years, the museum will spend $21 million to triple in size. Thus far, most of the expansion has concentrated on outdoor exhibits. David and I walked along a boardwalk over the man-made Deer Park Lake and into the outdoor Coastal Aviary, home to pelicans, egrets, ibis and herons. Enclosing a section of the lake with high nets, the Coastal Aviary again offered us the chance to see birds face to beak. The birds often perch right on the boardwalk's railing.

Beyond the Coastal Aviary, our surroundings became more densely wooded, but our elevated position from the boardwalk gave us a clear view of the animal happenings below. Each enclosure is designed to mimic native habitats. Eventually, the museum will host mountain lions, red and gray foxes, raccoons, turkey, white-tailed deer, bobcats, groundhogs, skunk and bears. We watched as an opossum explored its new home. Two huge bald eagles were less than 20 feet away.
Most weekend afternoons, the museum also offers special presentations. During a talk on Virginia in the ice age, we touched a mastodon tooth, a tusk and strands of woolly mammoth hair. David petted a live woodchuck and an opossum; both species hung out in Virginia to escape the ice.
An easy stop on the way to the Virginia and Carolina beaches, the Virginia Living Museum gives kids a chance to splash and learn in one vacation.

THE VIRGINIA LIVING MUSEUM -- 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News, Va. 757/595-1900. Web site: www.valivingmuseum.org. Open daily from 9 to 6 during the summer. $9, $7 for children 3 to 12 ($11 and $9 with the planetarium show).
Special event:
"The Great White Gator" -- Through Sept. 29. Two rare albino alligators are on display. Interactive presentations throughout the day.

 

 

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Friday, May 31, 2002

Communities brace for base closings
They prepare for next wave in 2005
CARL WEISER
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON -- The next round of military base closings is three years away, but military-reliant states and towns are already mobilizing to save their bases -- seeking local money for Pentagon needs, hiring consultants, and making communities more hospitable to military families.
Pennsylvania is "light-years ahead" of where it was before the last round in 1995, said Jack Keith, director of the state's base-saving committee.

Keith's mission, he said, is not to lose a single base or a single job, and that includes Letterkenny Army Depot. But he was coy about specifics, saying he didn't want to give away to competitors in other states what Pennsylvania was doing.

"The governor's theme is he wants to be the best host for the military of every state," he said.

States competing

But Pennsylvania has a lot of competition. Task forces have been formed to protect Navy bases around Norfolk, Va.; Air Force bases near Fairbanks, Alaska; and a Navy warfare center in southern Indiana.

An estimated 20 states, including South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, have formed base-saving task forces, according to the National Association of Installation Developers, a military base economic development group. Some towns and states never disbanded task forces from the most recent round seven years ago.

"They're starting earlier, thinking about these things ahead of time," said Tim Ford, deputy executive director of the base development association.

Backers of Letterkenny Army Depot are a little behind other base boosters. The state has no consultant and no paid staff besides Keith.

Letterkenny boosters

Rep. Bill Shuster convened an informal group of about 25 business leaders, politicians, and base officials in April to plot the depot's future. The group has no formal name or leader at the moment. It will meet next in June, said Shuster chief of staff Alex Mistri.

The goal, he said, is not to save Letterkenny, but to get it to grow and thrive.

"Am I worried we're behind? No, I'm not," Mistri said.

Shuster, for example, got $1.55 million added to this year's defense authorization bill to build a guard shack and widen a road leading to an ammunition storage area. The next step this summer will be to seek an appropriation -- the actual check -- for the project.

In the 1995 round of base closings and realignment, Letterkenny lost about 3,000 jobs as its tasks were farmed out to other installations.

The 19,000-acre depot near Chambersburg employs about 1,300 people, almost all civilians. Letterkenny maintains ground support equipment for the Patriot missile, the Avenger short-range air defense system, and other missiles.

Letterkenny spokesman Alan Loessy said the depot was doing its best to prove to the Pentagon that it is "a competitive and necessary piece of the Army's depot maintenance program."

David Sciamanna, president of the Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce, said he thinks the area is farther ahead this time than in the previous rounds, although he acknowledged, "everyone else is, too."

"It's certainly going to be a challenge for us," he said.

The Pentagon wants to close as many as 100 of its 398 installations. Defense officials estimate that they could save $3.5 billion a year by closing unneeded bases -- money that could be better spent fighting the war on terrorism.

The fight to save military bases is likely to be fierce. Overruling Pentagon wishes for a 2003 round, Congress delayed the next round until 2005, which gives local officials three years' head start. It's probably the last round, so investing in saving a base now will pay off years into the future. And after four previous rounds that shut 97 major bases, "we're cutting into bone now," said Paul Hirsch, a consultant hired by six communities to try to save their bases.

"There are going to be some bases that get closed that people don't believe in their wildest dreams are going to close," said Hirsch, a former analyst for the 1991 commission. "That's going to make it really, really intense."

Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said communities are welcome to hire lobbyists or consultants, but schmoozing won't ensure a base's preservation.

"We will start with a blank sheet of paper," he said. "All bases will be looked at. All bases."

Planning their defense

As in previous rounds, the Pentagon will submit a list of bases it wants closed to a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission. The commission will review and possibly revise the list, then send it to the president and Congress, both of which must accept or reject the list in its entirety.

Among the factors the Pentagon will consider: whether the base fits with the military threats facing the nation for the next 20 years; how efficiently the base accomplishes its mission; ensuring bases in a variety of climates and terrain; how well the base is supported by the community; the economic impact on local towns; and whether the base is restricted by suburban sprawl or local environmental laws.

Washington consultant S. Steven Karalekas, who is working for a Corpus Christi, Texas, base protection task force, plans to stress homeland defense, showing the need for a military presence given the vulnerability of that area's refineries and pipelines to terrorism.

"This homeland security changes the whole picture in a lot of areas of country -- in ports, in border areas -- where the military is going to play a much greater role," he said.

Georgia is trying to secure a training center for handling disasters like terrorists attacks. And Shuster last year got the Army to consider putting a new anti-terrorism center at Letterkenny.

Because some of the base protection task forces will inevitably fail, Ford of the base economic development group suggests that officials also start to ask a different question: What to do if the base closes?

"Start thinking about your plan B," he said, "about how you might reuse the base."

In other states


In Oklahoma, the chairman of that state's base protection task force, state Rep. David Braddock, is pushing to make school graduation standards more flexible to accommodate military families whose children transfer in for senior year. Braddock is also seeking $1.25 million in state funding this year to help the state's five military towns "jump start" their base-saving campaigns. That's a small investment considering the military accounts for 5% to 10% of the state's entire economy, he said.

In Georgia, the state task force is seeking money to improve and widen roads around military bases. It sent out local officials to lobby doctors who didn't accept the military's health insurance plan. It's working to secure the Army's Southern Command headquarters for Fort Benning with the city of Columbus willing to float bonds to build it.

In North Dakota, Gov. John Hoeven formed a task force to figure out how to expand the missions of Air Force bases in Minot and Grand Forks with a part of the proposed national missile defense system. Hoeven's pitch to the Pentagon in favor of his bases: plenty of local support and even more space.

 

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Council kicks in for part of Wilcox Ranch
By Ian Thompson


FAIRFIELD -- The Fairfield City Council has agreed to pay its share of the $1.39 million needed to buy part of the Wilcox Ranch and ensure Travis Air Force Base has the ability to expand in the future.
"This sends a powerful message of how concerned we are for the protection of Travis AFB," Mayor Karin MacMillan said Tuesday when the council endorsed the deal.
Fairfield will pay $726,911 and Solano County will pay the rest to buy 1,858 acres southeast of Travis AFB. The Nature Conservancy, a nationwide wildlands conservation group, is getting the rest of the 3,430-acre ranch.
Escrow is expected to close on June 15, said Chris Unkle of The Nature Conservancy.
On Tuesday, the council had nothing but praise for the deal which the city and county have worked to put together since August 2001.
"I feel this is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars for both the defense of the country and the protection of our local economy," Vice Mayor Harry Price said.
Last year's discovery that The Nature Conservancy was buying the Wilcox Ranch scared local leaders who felt the purchase would restrict Travis AFB's ability to expand, threatening its future viability as an Air Mobility Command base.
At times, sticking points over how much grazing should be allowed on the ranch slowed negotiations and prompted worries that the deal could fall through.
In other business, the City Council voted to support West Sacramento resident Eddie Lang's efforts to get Highway 40, the predecessor to Interstate 80, designated as a historic highway.
Highway 40 ran through Fairfield using North Texas Street, Texas Street and portions of Suisun Valley Road and Cordelia Road.
If approved by the state, historic markers would be put up showing the highway's route across California.
Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

 

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Council schedules hearings on senior programs

By Jay Howser

FAIRFIELD -- Area residents can share their thoughts on senior services supported by the Area Agency on Aging Serving Napa-Solano at three public hearings starting this week.

The Agency on Aging works to meet the needs of older people and facilitates several programs locally, including employment and ombudsman services. Its advisory council serves as a principal advocate for seniors.

The council will conduct hearings in Napa, Vallejo and Vacaville starting Friday. The annual hearings give Napa-Solano seniors and other members of the public a chance to review the agency's 2002 area plan and voice ideas and concerns about services. Results of the hearings are reported to the California Department of Aging.

The meetings also provide an opportunity to learn about local programs and services, Deputy Director Leanne Martinsen said. The agency's new Info-Van, paid for by an innovation grant through the Department of Aging, will be on hand to distribute brochures and videos that contain information on services.

"The more people know about services and what's available, the greater ability they have to access those services for themselves or loved ones when they need them," Martinsen said.

Interested people can also find out how to get involved in volunteer opportunities because "so many of our programs depend on volunteers," Martinsen said.

The public hearings will happen Friday at the Napa Senior Center, 1500 Jefferson St. in Napa; Tuesday at the Florence Douglas Senior Center, 333 Amador St. in Vallejo; and May 9 at the McBride Senior Center, 411 Kendal St. in Vacaville. All three start at 1 p.m. For more information, call 644-6612 or visit www.aaans.org.

Jay Howser can be reached at jhowser@dailyrepublic.net.

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April 26, 2002
Subcommittee rejects plea to prevent base closings
By Molly M. Peterson, National Journal's Technology Daily

A House Armed Services subcommittee voted Thursday to spend $10 billion on military construction projects next year, but rejected a plea to prevent a round of base closings scheduled for 2005.
The Military Installations and Facilities Subcommittee approved its portion of the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill (H.R. 4546) by voice vote.
"Despite what many are thinking, this is not an exercise in unneeded spending," said Subcommittee Chairman Jim Saxton, R-N.J. "Every project before the subcommittee today was validated as a military necessity by the Pentagon."
The legislation also includes a provision to tighten language pertaining to base closures in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization law (P.L. 107-107). That law authorized a new round of base realignments and closures (BRAC) in 2005, despite opposition from most House members.
Saxton said the BRAC provision in this year's bill would serve as a "placeholder" enabling House conferees to raise the issue of base closures again this year when they meet with their Senate counterparts.
But Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., argued that the subcommittee should do more to protect the nation's military bases, and offered an amendment that would have prevented the 2005 base closures by repealing the BRAC provision from last year's law.
Taylor argued that "there is absolutely no logical reason for closing bases right now," particularly in light of the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism, which is expected to last years. "How do you grow your force and shrink your number of bases at the same time?" Taylor said.
Pentagon officials maintain that the base closures are an economic necessity, and a crucial component of the Defense Department's ongoing efforts to transform its military and administrative capabilities in a manner that reflects the global transition from the industrial age to the information age.
They have also pointed to a General Accounting Office report released earlier this month, which concluded that the Defense Department has accrued about $16.7 billion in net savings as a result of hundreds of base closures that occurred between 1988 and 1995.
But Taylor disputed those findings, and charged that in submitting financial information to GAO, Pentagon officials had "frankly just picked numbers out of the sky, to build a case that they saved money."
"I'm giving the people in this room an opportunity to keep bad things from happening, because BRAC doesn't make any sense," Taylor told his colleagues before they voted on his amendment.
Although most members opposed the 2005 base closure plan, they also opposed Taylor's amendment, explaining that even if the full House voted to keep all bases open in 2005, the closures would still occur because Senate and the White House are unwilling to compromise on the issue.
"At the end of the day, we're not going to win, and even if we do win, the president is going to veto it," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md.
Some members also warned that Taylor's amendment could unintentionally make things worse for military bases and the surrounding communities. "If we open up this can of worms again, we're going to have either no (change in the BRAC law) or a worse BRAC law," said Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind. Taylor's amendment then failed by a 3-13 vote.
Most of the new construction projects approved by the subcommittee would be geared toward force protection, Saxton said. But the legislation also would authorize $18.4 million for construction related to the new Northern Command, which would coordinate the Defense Department's various homeland security missions and is scheduled to begin operating in October.
President Bush's fiscal 2003 budget requested $25 million in construction spending for the Northern Command, but Saxton said the subcommittee reduced that figure because Pentagon officials had provided "no details about what, precisely, the administration wants to do" with the Northern Command.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, the panel's ranking Democrat, argued that Congress should not authorize any construction dollars for the Northern Command without a concrete understanding of how that money would be spent.
"This construction portion is but one element in the entire Northern Command idea, and that's all it is right now--an idea," Abercrombie said. "When we start putting hundreds of millions of dollars behind what is at best a vague idea ... we are undermining the sense of discipline that we try to exercise in this committee."
Abercrombie did not offer any amendments, but said he would oppose the Northern Command provisions when the full committee takes up the bill.

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April 24, 2002
UPDATE
Navy Sinks Last Chance of Airport at El Toro
Land use: Site will be sold for parks and development, with details up to Irvine. The decision ends 8 years and $54 million of planning by Orange County.


By JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Burying any chance of an airport at the closed El Toro Marine base, the Navy said Tuesday that it will sell the sprawling Orange County property for parks and other limited development.

Just what is built will ultimately be the decision of local officials--specifically the city of Irvine, the Navy said. Irvine has petitioned to annex the 4,700-acre base; 424 of those acres are already within city limits.

"This marks the beginning of a tremendous opportunity for the people of Orange County and best meets the mandate of the base closure law to return this property to productive local use," Secretary of the Navy Gordon England said in a statement. Orange County supervisors reacted to the news by canceling contracts with 15 consultants working on the proposed international airport, except for two advocacy firms that specialize in dealing with the Navy and federal bureaucracy. Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson--both longtime El Toro airport opponents--were the only two of the five-member board who objected to continuing those two contracts.

The announcement ends eight years and $54 million worth of planning by the county for a commercial airport at El Toro, which opened in 1943 and closed in July 1999. Local voters approved airport zoning for the base in 1994 but rescinded that last month through Measure W. The new zoning calls for a park, open space and limited development.

The decision also dashes the hopes of regional planners, who saw a new airport at El Toro as both an economic stimulus and a way to take the pressure off other Southern California airports.

In a letter to Cynthia P. Coad, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, H. T. Johnson, the Navy's assistant secretary for installations, said the goal is to move El Toro "into private hands so that it can be placed on the tax rolls for the benefit of the citizens of Orange County and the city of Irvine."

Johnson, who made the final decision on El Toro, will be in Orange County on Thursday to meet with county and Irvine officials on a plan for selling the property. In a letter to Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who hopes to build a large urban park at the base, Johnson said the Navy wants to agree on a plan that includes city zoning and a development plan by May 31.

The property will be sold through the General Services Administration, which sent appraisers to view the base last month. The Navy will end its El Toro lease with the county on June 30 but will honor several subleases, including those for a golf course, stables, farming and recreational vehicle storage.

The Navy's statement stressed that the Federal Aviation Administration would have no further role in the fate of the base--a blow to elected leaders from Los Angeles and Ontario who flew to Washington last week to ask the FAA to stop the Navy sale.

Anticlimactic, Yes, but Airport Foes Ecstatic

The Navy announcement was anticlimactic in Orange County, where most local officials saw it as a confirmation of last month's public vote. But there were no guarantees that a sizable park would be built--the centerpiece of Irvine's rezoning campaign--or how much of the land might end up in the hands of Irvine for public use.

Still, south Orange County officials who have fought for years to prevent the airport were jubilant.

"This is the last stake in the heart of the airport," said Irvine Councilman Chris Mears, who met last week in Washington with Johnson and Irvine City Manager Allison Hart. "Irvine will be the master planner of the base in concert with the Navy. Who the land is sold to and how, those are the details to be worked out."

"The Navy has listened to the will of the people of Orange County and come to the right decision for El Toro," said Allan Songstad, chairman of the nine-city El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, which opposed the county's airport plan.

The Navy's statement didn't mention the possibility of moving the Marine Corps' West Coast boot camp to El Toro--an idea that continued to circulate Tuesday. In a statement, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones said the Navy's decision "allows for a timeline that provides the Marine Corps sufficient time to study future possible land uses for El Toro."

Orange County supervisors have welcomed the possibility of the Marines' return, although it would take federal legislation to reopen the closed base. San Diego politicians are split on the idea of shifting the boot camp to El Toro. Reps. Randall "Duke" Cunningham (R-Escondido) and Darrell Issa (R-Vista) say it could allow San Diego to expand Lindbergh Field, which is adjacent to the boot camp.

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy said that the city isn't encouraging the Marines to leave the depot, but "we remain ready to evaluate alternative land uses if the Marine Corps decides to move [the boot camp] to El Toro."

Some of the Land Will House the Homeless

Orange County supervisors also will ask the Navy to allow 852 single-family houses on the base to be used for low-income housing and transitional living for the homeless.

Irvine's plan calls for the homes to be used by faculty, staff and other employees of Cal State Fullerton, which wants to build a new campus at El Toro, and UC Irvine. Some 165 of the homes already are planned for housing for the homeless.

What happens to the homes--part of 1,188 total housing units on the base--is "going to be the Navy's call," Mears said. As with other closed bases, including the Marine helicopter base at Tustin, the houses could be sold.

The challenge now is to create a master plan for the redevelopment of the base that involves the coordinated transfer of property to individual buyers, Mears said. A park still is planned, he said.

The city intends for 88% of the land to remain in public uses, including the university and a nearly 1,000-acre wildlife sanctuary already established by the Navy. Another 70 acres will go to the Department of Justice for FBI training.

At least one airport proponent held out hope Tuesday that the Navy's intentions would change if a proposed initiative to revive an airport at El Toro qualifies for the Nov. 5 ballot. Retired airline pilot and Villa Park Councilman Bob McGowan said backers hope to restore airport zoning to the property before it is sold.

*

Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What's Next for El Toro

* Thursday: Assistant Secretary of the Navy H.T. Johnson and staff from the Navy and General Services Administration will meet in Orange County with county supervisors and Irvine officials on disposal of El Toro.

* May 31: Navy's goal for completing an agreement with Irvine on the sale and transfer of El Toro land. The city plans to annex the property.

* Mid-June: An alternative airport plan -- the Reasonable Airport and Nature Preserve Initiative -- should be submitted to the registrar of voters to verify that there are enough valid signatures to place it on the Nov. 5 county ballot.

* June 30: El Toro master lease with the county will be terminated by the Navy, which has promised to honor subleases on the base as of March 5.

* Aug. 9: Last day to put the airport initiative on the ballot.

* September: Irvine hopes to begin circulating an environmental impact report on its proposed annexation of the 4,700-acre Marine base.

* Sept. 10: Board of Supervisors scheduled to vote on approval of Irvine's annexation plan.

* Nov. 5: California general election.

* January 2003: Annexation of the base to Irvine expected to be complete after a vote by the Local Agency Formation Commission.

Source: U.S. Navy, city of Irvine, Orange County Board of Supervisors

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B-52 still 'BUFF' at 50
By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY

U.S. Air Force file photo
The B-52 has provided a half-century of service, from Cold War alerts to today's war in Afghanistan.
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. - Throughout the history of military aviation, the B-52 has no peer. For half a century, the massive jet, with its eight gigantic engines and 185-foot wingspan, has been a symbol of American might - and the only bomber to lend its name to a rock band.
This month, the B-52, which made its maiden flight when Harry Truman was president, celebrates its 50th birthday. That heady milestone is only a marker for middle age, however. The bomber, whose lifetime spans 11 presidents, four wars and nearly every technological leap of the jet age, is still a vital part of the Air Force fleet.
It is scheduled to fly until 2040. That would make it the longest-serving military jet in history.
"It is quite a remarkable aircraft," observes Wayne Thompson, an Air Force historian in Washington, D.C. "The interesting thing is, everything it does today, it was never designed to do."
Though the youngest B-52 in today's Air Force fleet is 41 years old, the giant bomber is anything but a Cold War relic. It proved its mettle once again in Afghanistan by helping rout Taliban forces last fall. Lurking high in the sky like airborne artillery guns, B-52s hunted their prey by dropping smart bombs from 40,000 feet.
Linked to special operations soldiers on the ground by laptop computers and satellite relays, B-52 crews flew higher than commercial passenger jets to drop their payloads - satellite-guided bombs aimed at Taliban and al-Qaeda troops who could neither hear nor see the origin of their destruction.
"The B-52 is the Air Force's answer to the Navy aircraft carrier in terms of fear and morale," says Chris Bolkcom, an aviation analyst with the Congressional Research Service. "Nobody wants 70,000 pounds of ordnance dropped on them, and just the threat of B-52s flying overhead is enough to make our adversaries run."
The B-52 is to bombers what Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., is to U.S. senators. By the time the current B-52H models are retired, they will have served nearly 80 years. No other bomber or fighter has seen so much history pass beneath its wings, or so much technology zoom past its tail.
Ugly, fat and ageless
Known to Air Force crews as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow), it was for nearly four decades an essential part of the United States' deterrent against the Soviet Union. The brainchild of legendary Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, the B-52 was dreamed up by Boeing engineers in a Dayton, Ohio, hotel room in October 1948.
The first B-52 lifted off April 15, 1952, for a test flight. Since that time, the lumbering bomber played a major role in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
The B-52 owes its longevity to slide-rule-generation engineers who conceived the design after World War II. Built before the advent of computer models, the B-52's many structural redundancies - from landing gear to wing design - keep it airworthy today.
The B-52 is challenging for pilots to fly, short on space and modern comforts but nonetheless beloved by many who have climbed through its cramped entryway in the bottom of the fuselage.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom Keck, who commands the 8th Air Force, has spent 3,000 hours flying the giant bomber. His dad, retired lieutenant general James Keck, also flew B-52s. The younger Keck surmises that by the time the B-52 is retired, it will have been theoretically possible for four or five generations from the same family to fly it.
Although the Air Force built more than 700 B-52s, only about 90 survive. Boeing long ago shut down the productionline, leaving crews to scrounge spare parts in the strangest places, including aviation museums and the Air Force's "Bone Yard," a repository for aging aircraft in the Arizona desert. Mechanics have literally scavenged repair parts by tearing up old B-52s with chain saws to keep the current fleet flying.
A renaissance
B-52 officers "Wall Street," "Doogie" and "Splash," assigned to a Reserve squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, joined the military in the 1980s when the United States still kept the bombers on nuclear alert. (During the war on terrorism, the Air Force permits B-52 crewmembers to be identified only by their first names or military nicknames.)
The three Barksdale crewmembers marvel at how the bomber morphed from Cold War sledgehammer to its current role using smart bombs for surgical strikes. All three say they feared for the B-52's survival in the 1990s, when many officers thought it would be phased out in favor of newer B-1s and B-2 stealth bombers.
Now, they say, the B-52 has proved indispensable because it is so reliable and can carry a huge store of smart bombs.
"When they gave us the coordinates, we'd kill whatever they told us to," says "Wall Street," a B-52 pilot who flew 19 missions over Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the Air Force used B-52s to perform roles usually reserved for smaller, sleeker and faster fighter jets. The success of B-52s in a troop-killing role that the military calls "close air support" turned conventional wisdom on its head. For one, it suggested the Pentagon can modernize without spending billions on sexy new hardware. The aircraft's rebirth also rekindled a debate over the role of the nation's bomber fleet, which some say is too small.
Instead of flying dozens of fighter jets capable of dropping only one or two bombs each, the Pentagon dispatched a handful of B-52s or B-1 bombers in Afghanistan to visit destruction equal to an entire squadron of smaller aircraft.
The practice of dropping large numbers of satellite-guided smart bombs from high altitude, which one senior Air Force general has dubbed "mass precision bombing," is certain to play a role in future U.S. attacks.
The effectiveness of the large bombers also has implications for U.S. basing as the Pentagon ponders options against Iraq. Because the bombers can fly thousands of miles farther than fighter jets without refueling, the United States could be able to attack Iraq even if Arab allies don't allow the use of their bases.
The United States has dropped about 12,000 guided bombs in Afghanistan. Satellite-directed weapons are viewed by military planners as the new weapon of choice. By using B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers with clusters of satellite-guided bombs, the United States will put far fewer pilots at risk while greatly increasing the pace of attacks.
"The bomber re-emerged in this war," says Tom McInerney, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and Fox News military analyst. "People in the Pentagon don't fully appreciate what we did and how we used firepower in Afghanistan."
Army soldiers at Bagram air base near Kabul credited air cover provided by fighters and B-52 bombers for helping rout dug-in al-Qaeda forces during Operation Anaconda in March.
On at least two occasions, Air Force B-52s cruising high over Afghanistan prevented the defeat of Northern Alliance and U.S. Special Forces troops under siege. On Nov. 2, an Air Force Reserve B-52 from Barksdale came to the rescue of about 10 Special Forces soldiers under attack from an estimated 1,000 Taliban fighters near Kandahar. Twenty minutes after receiving the distress call, the B-52 was guided to the target by Army ground controllers and destroyed a ridge line full of Taliban forces.
The B-52s carry a mother lode of weaponry, including 16 satellite-guided smart bombs under their wings and 27 unguided "dumb" bombs in their bellies.
Air Force B-52s loitered for three to four hours at a time over Afghanistan, where soldiers directed them to enemy soldiers during the heat of battle using laser range finders and hand-held navigation aids linked to satellites.
The tactics, never before used in war, allowed the United States to destroy the same number of targets as during the Gulf War by flying a tenth the missions.
A workhorse
B-52 crewmembers describe their airplane as a '57 Chevy in a world of late-model sports cars.
The cabin and cockpit are more cramped than a backyard tree house and have about the same amenities. There are no bathrooms; instead, the five crewmembers urinate into a tube with little privacy.
Inside the crew cabin, the jet is noisier than its namesake rock band, the B-52s. The 120 decibels generated by its engines are, according to crewmembers, louder than a typical rock concert.
The cockpit is crammed with buttons, dials and Vietnam War-era gauges and wires. Until about a decade ago, the B-52 crew included a tail gunner, a holdover from the days when U.S. bombers filled the skies over Europe during World War II.
Just behind the cockpit, there's another telling sign of the B-52's age: an opening in the top of the fuselage to navigate by sextant.
There was little glamour inside or outside the B-52 during its heyday in the Cold War.
Bomber crews would rotate on alert status for a week at a time, confined to Spartan barracks - known as "mole holes" - from which they would race to their aircraft to get airborne before incoming Soviet missiles struck. The B-52 played a major role in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as a nuclear bomber, and later, in Vietnam, proved to be a symbol of American futility despite an extensive and at times devastating bombing campaign in North Vietnam.
During its days carpet-bombing North Vietnam, B-52s turned triple-canopy jungle into moonscape, gouging giant craters into the earth during more than 100,000 bombing missions there.
The B-52 is the monster truck of airplanes. It is the only military jet still flying that has eight engines. The aircraft is so sturdy, 8th Air Force commander Keck says, that even if it lost half its engines to enemy fire it could still land safely.
"You could probably land with three," Keck says, adding, "it's just a large, reliable airplane."
For all its archaic hardware, the BUFF remains the backbone of a bomber force that includes 21 stealthy B-2s and 93 B-1s.
"People have a soft spot in their hearts for the B-52," says Air Force Gen. Donald Cook, a former B-52 pilot who now heads Air Force training. "It's not sexy, but the aircraft always does a good job."

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Heavy mettle
Supporters say all that power-lifting C-5s need are new engines and spare parts - and a little faith from Congress

Will the C-5 Galaxy fleet be able to endure Enduring Freedom?
It's the question on the minds of many in or reliant upon the airlift community. With a 59.7 percent mission-capable rate in fiscal 2001 - by far the lowest among airlifters - it's not hard to imagine why.
The airmen who fly and maintain the largest cargo jet in the U.S. inventory are quick to answer. The C-5 fleet will not only endure the mission, they say, but will emerge from Enduring Freedom even stronger. And so far, they're right. Though Enduring Freedom has brought a 32 percent increase in sorties and a 67 percent increase in flight hours, breaks are down by roughly 50 percent and mission-capable rates are nearing an all-time high.
Col. Frank Bruno, the C-5 systems program director, said the fleet can do even better. With some planned modernization, a new engine and a few dollars for spare parts in 2004, Bruno said, the C-5's mission-capable rate would average "at least 75 percent" within a decade.
Galaxy crew members don't question whether those numbers are realistic, but they do question whether they will ever become reality.
It's not because they lack confidence in the airlifter. Those pilots, maintainers, loadmasters and engineers - the ones most affected by the C-5's problems - happen to be its strongest supporters. But some of them wonder if defense and congressional leaders share that support.
"It's a downward spiral," said Maj. Bill Russell, a 17-year veteran with eight years in the C-5. "You have bad reliability, then you get a bad reputation. Next thing you know, people don't want to fund you, and the situation gets worse and worse."
That's not what's going to happen, according to Air Mobility Command. Officials there say they are committed to programs that will upgrade the Air Force's 126 Galaxys with new engines and modern cockpits. They are unanimous in their praise of C-5 maintainers and said they fully intend to meet the needs of these "unsung heroes."
And if anyone wants to challenge the C-5's worth, he'll need one just to carry the tons of facts and figures AMC officials will throw his way.
Enduring Freedom's heavy lifting
The Galaxy has been a critical component of military operations in the war on terrorism. By March 7, it had taken the C-5 only 950 missions to ferry 46,000 tons of cargo and 18,000 passengers. That tonnage represents more than half of the 88,875 tons lifted in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In comparison, C-17s in that same period lifted a comparable 41,750 tons of cargo and 17,000 passengers, but it took 1,500 missions for the smaller, more strategic airlifter to do so.
AMC's airlift capability stands at 46.9 million ton-miles a day, up from its 44.8 million ton-miles per day average in fiscal 2001.
Despite its ability to meet this growing need, the massive C-5 continues to be plagued by its reputation as an unreliable aircraft.
The Galaxy's mission-capable rate is regularly at the bottom of the barrel. Only the B-2 stealth bomber's dismal 31.5 percent scored below the C-5's 59.7 percent in fiscal 2001. In comparison, the C-130 Hercules boasted a 73.1 percent mission-capable rate, while the C-17 scored an impressive 83.4 percent. No cargo jet, fighter, bomber or tanker scored higher.
Just don't lay such numbers before the men and women who maintain and operate the Galaxy. Those "paper statistics" carry about as much weight as a paper airplane in their eyes.
"The way they come up with our MCR is a bunch of nonsense," said Senior Master Sgt. William Walsh, a flight engineer with 22 years of service. "The C-5s flying Enduring Freedom are performing much better than that number says, but because a C-5 doesn't leave for depot maintenance on time, our average comes down."
Walsh is right. In fact, the mission-capable rate for AMC's 73 Galaxys is cruising closer to the high 60s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter J. Hennessey, AMC's director of logistics. He said the offset occurs when Guard and Reserve C-5s are added to the mix. The Reserve's 32 C-5s, for example, have a 62.5 percent rate in fiscal '02.
But even a nearly 10 percent jump gains the C-5 only one position on the mission capability scale. It moves the Galaxy ahead of the B-1B Lancer, which scored a 60.7 percent mission-capable rate in fiscal 2001.
And being so low for so long has left some people low on faith.
Former Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Tony Robertson Jr. in congressional testimony last year said the C-5 is so unreliable that AMC for two years had assigned two C-5s for higher priority missions in case one of the planes broke.
One senior official at the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., said that any time he has to send a C-5 on a priority mission, he has to send a tanker as well because "if I let the C-5 land, it'll break."
It was a lesson well-learned by this reporter. The C-5 that was to carry a media pool on March 13 from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, broke down in Savannah, Ga. A bad engine was the culprit. Dover dispatched a maintenance response team, but one of the four General Electric TF-39 turbofan engines just wouldn't come to life.
The replacement jet didn't fare much better. It made it to Dover, but was grounded due to a thrust-reversal problem in at least two engines.
At 6 a.m., about nine hours behind schedule, another Dover C-5 manned by a nine-member crew from the New York Air National Guard's 137th Airlift Squadron arrived to save the day.
"That's the flexibility of airlift," said an upbeat Maj. Jon Anderson, public affairs chief for the 436th Airlift Wing. "Most aircraft fly just fine. Most don't break."
But some do. In fact, some do quite often.
Reliability on rebound
AMC uses "block-ins" as the basis for counting aircraft breaks, a discrepancy which renders the jet nonmission capable. A block-in is defined as the aircraft being parked and chocks being positioned.
The command logged 3,518 C-5 block-ins between September 2000 and February 2001. Of those aircraft, 548 were listed as breaks - one break for every 6.4 block-ins.
AMC logged 4,469 block-ins between September 2001 and February 2002. It's a 27 percent increase over the same six-month period the previous year, but breaks decreased to 481. That 12 percent drop in breaks equates to one break for every 9.3 block-ins.
Simply put, the C-5 has "done an admirable job" supporting the war on terrorism, said Maj. Gen. Michael W. Wooley, commander of the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott.
And things are looking up.
The C-5 fleet ended fiscal 2001 with 39.4 cannibalizations per 100 sorties, down from 47.2 percent in 2000. It has cut that number further in 2002 - down to 29.1 cannibalizations per 100 sorties as of March 1. Anderson, the Dover public affairs chief, said the 436th has cut its cannibalized aircraft from two to one. A cannibalized aircraft will usually sit for no more than 45 days, he said, then be repaired and replaced on flight status.
The C-5's depot time also has been cut by almost a third.
In fiscal 2001, Galaxys on average spent 222 days in depot maintenance, according to officials at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins Air Force Base, Ga. C-5s averaged 321 depot days in fiscal 2000 and 385 days in 1999.
Robins officials attribute the lengthy depot stays to unanticipated repairs on the aircraft's torque deck and a loss of experience when the depot transferred in 1998 from Kelly Air Force Base, Texas.
Bruno said that after "thorough analysis" his office has determined the increase in flight hours won't speed up the depot schedule, "not at this point."
Though things are looking up, Bruno admitted things are not perfect. "Though the MCRs are good, by no means are we satisfied."
Neither are crew members. And as quick as they are to defend the plane's reputation, they are equally as quick to point fingers - the problem is not with the plane, they say, but with the lack of parts to fix it.
Bruno agrees. "Structurally, this is a very sound airplane. The real problem is component reliability," he said.
And he thinks the Air Force has the solution.
Parts, parts and more parts
As the program manager, Bruno mentioned several approaches to improve the C-5's mission-capable rate. The first is to have a positive, proactive attitude.
"There are a couple of methodologies out there," Bruno said. "One says fly a part until it fails. The other says be predictive and fix it before it breaks. I want to be in the latter camp."
That's good news for Capt. Jon Daigle, an aircraft commander with the 709th Airlift Squadron, a reserve unit based at Dover.
Daigle, flying his first upgrade ride March 25 from Ramstein to Dover, said too often the C-5 crews "fly to fail." Instead of marking parts to be rebuilt, the parts are used until they fail and need to be replaced. And replacing them isn't easy.
"Once this thing is done, it's done. They don't make it anymore," the captain said, pointing at different components throughout the aging cockpit. "Once this is done, it's done. Once this is done …"
Bruno is aware of the pilot's concerns, and has a couple of remedies in the works.
First, he may add up to 68 items to the 144 that now are "serial tracked." Every time one of these parts is touched, its condition is recorded. This allows maintenance officials to catch trends long before significant failures of parts occur across the board.
Bruno also said his short-term priority for C-5s is "to get the two-stripers the materials and spare parts they need to keep them flying." Sporadic hits for specific parts cause the most problems, he said. "We face the challenge every day with a diminishing vendor support."
"Diminishing vendor support" is another way of saying many parts are no longer built. In what Bruno calls "agile logistics," the C-5 community relies heavily upon re-birth engineering and local manufacturing to make hundreds of items not available in the commercial sector.
Bruno said he will request money for parts in the 2004 Program Objective Memoranda. POMs are six-year spending plans typically submitted as early as May. Reviews could last through the summer.
Bruno wouldn't get into specific numbers but said the request would be "several million dollars worth" that would put a wider variety of parts on the shelf, primarily smaller maintenance modernizations such as valves, actuators and cockpit components.
"If that money is approved - and that's a big if - we could see parts immediately," he said, adding that some parts do have longer lead times. Bruno said parts funding through the '04 POM would boost mission-capable rates to 70 percent.
Parts do build reliability. Want to know how much? Bring in another C-5 to carry these numbers:
In fiscal 1994, roughly 19 percent of the C-5 fleet was grounded while waiting for parts at any given time. So far in fiscal 2002, that number is around 17.3 percent.
Brig. Gen. Peter J. Hennessey, AMC's director of logistics, attributes that improvement largely to parts funding. He gave a handful of examples that totaled nearly $1 billion since 1999, but AMC did not provide by press time material on past, present and future C-5 budgets and proposals.
Lt. Col. Mark San Souci attributes much of the improvements he's seen at Dover's 436th Aircraft Generation Squadron to increased parts funding. On any given day, his squadron - the largest in AMC - has roughly 102 mission-capable parts on order. This time last year, that number was around 150 parts.
Cannibalization man-hours are down at Dover, too. The unit in March 2001 spent 567 man-hours pulling parts off one aircraft and placing them on another. That number jumped to 629 hours in September, when the ops tempo increased three-fold, but it since has leveled off to 407 man-hours in February.
It gets better still. The 436th Aircraft Generation Squadron fixes about 40 aircraft per month, not all of which are Dover tails, San Souci said. The fix rate - defined as getting an aircraft repaired in 24 hours - was 72 percent in October 2001. It was up to 85 percent in February.
New engines, new life
Parts availability is only one small piece of the puzzle. The C-5's reliability ultimately rests upon a two-pronged modernization effort. The first element is the Avionics Modernization Program, which upgrades C-5 cockpits and avionics. Or, as Bruno puts it, the program removes "tough-to-maintain, hard-to-get parts and replaces them with off-the-shelf hardware and software."
The second arm is the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program. AMC said the propulsion system "continues to be the leading cause of low [mission-capable] rates for the C-5," causing one-third of all breaks. The command in 2005 will fit two C-5Bs and one C-5A with new General Electric CF680C2 engines.
Both programs are in what Wooley calls a "rugged test phase." And both are expensive.
For the modernization program, the Air Force has roughly $391 million to modify 94 jets from 2003 to 2006. That's pocket change when compared to the $379 billion President Bush has requested for defense spending in 2003. RERP would cost a few more dollars. Almost $11 billion more. But if tests are successful, and both programs are funded by Congress, the payoff will be big, Bruno said.
How big? Add another 10 percent to that near-record mission-capable rate the C-5 fleet now has.
"With AMP and RERP in place, we envision at a minimum a 75 percent mission-capable rate," he said, saying the number was "based on good, sound analysis."
And Maj. Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, AMC's director of plans and programs, pointed out that a 75 percent average means many C-5s would boast MCRs "over 80 percent."
Is that possible? Brig. Gen. Peter J. Hennessey, AMC's director of logistics, thinks so. So does every member of the C-5 community contacted for this story.
But until these things take effect, the load must be carried by the maintainers. And to this point, they've carried a burden commensurate with the plane they so fiercely defend.
"Yeah, C-5s do break, but there's an incredible team getting them back up," said retired Master Sgt. Ronnie Allen, Dover's air terminal staff manager. "These maintenance crews are really dedicated, really phenomenal. Any time a C-5 takes off, there is a huge team to thank for that."
It's a difficult task, Allen said, because the planes are aging, the tempo is high and many airmen are deployed.
"We're running a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week operation," said San Souci, the 436th squadron commander. "Our people are working 12-hour shifts" to get the job done. "You have to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint."
If San Souci's airmen don't get it fixed, it's up to Allen and his airmen to get the cargo off the broken bird and onto one that's ready to fly. It's a time-consuming event they call "swapping tails." Allen said they're not quite averaging one swap a day, "but lately it sure seems like it."
"I see the maintenance guys out there," Allen said. "They're not laughing, but they're all smiling."
That certainly was true of Tech. Sgt. Brian Hetherly, who was all smiles as he talked about the C-5 on the flight from Dover to Rhein-Main.
Keep 'em warm, running
Hetherly is a flying crew chief with the New York Air National Guard's 137th Airlift Squadron. It's his job to maintain the airplane and be a liaison between the aircraft commander and ground maintenance crews.
So why was he all smiles? Because he loves his job and he loves his airplane. It's most evident in his quick responses to "C-5 bashing."
"This is a good plane, but it's a big plane," said Hetherly, a 16-year veteran of active duty and the Guard. "This is a huge piece of equipment with a lot of moving parts. They're going to break."
Anticipating such breaks, Air Mobility Command has launched two pre-emptive strikes.
First, crews no longer stay with their plane when it breaks. If the plane isn't up after one day, the crew is shuffled to the next available C-5.
AMC also has dispersed C-5 maintenance teams throughout the world. Known as a Global Mobility Task Force, a variety of talent comprises a typical team - engine mechanics, hydraulics, instrumentation and electricians.
One such team at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., found favor with Hetherly. A navigational computer went on the fritz, and the team helped him troubleshoot so repairs at Dover would be quick. The problem was fixed "in a matter of hours."
The length of a crew's stay depends on where and what the plane breaks, Hetherly said. The longest time one of his planes has been down is five days.
But no matter how many spare parts or maintainers are available, "you're just going to have problems," Hetherly said.
He also offered a solution: Fly the C-5s more.
"If you keep the plane going, keep it nice and warm, it'll run better for you," Hetherly said. "It's like a car. If you keep it in the back yard for six months and don't start it, what's going to happen?
"Crews need rest. Planes don't."
That theory seems to have weight, evident by the increases in flight hours and sorties and the decrease in break rates.
But even on the best day, he admitted, C-5 maintenance is tough.
"It's going to break, and it's going to break in different places and different ways. It's very unpredicatable," said Hetherly, who also spent four years fixing C-141 Starlifters. "But when we have the parts and can get her running right, she's a workhorse."
What many airmen want to know is: Will the C-5 get the parts and funding it so desperately needs?
For us, or against us?
So if the C-5 is performing so well, is seeing depot time and cannibalizations drop, and may soon see mission-capable rates reach unprecedented highs, why are crews so worried about support?
A few choice words, a little "bad press" and that pesky reputation they can't seem to shake.
"The C-5 has been a punching bag," Bruno admitted with a sigh. "I don't think the bad press is warranted."
While every airman interviewed voiced unwavering praise for the "Cadillac of airlifters," many searched the skies above before talking about the aircraft's future.
"Let's face it, when the C-5 gets airborne, it works fantastic," said Russell, the major with 17 years of service. "The trick is getting it airborne. We need more maintainers and more money. And I'm not sure we're going to get either." Flying 33,000 feet over England, it was evident there was a problem, be it real or perceived. Most of the crew, and many of their counterparts interviewed before and after that flight, believe the C-5 lacks support in AMC, the Air Force and in Congress to get needed and costly upgrades.
AMC officials say it isn't so.
Wooley said he has the utmost confidence in the C-5, and his actions speak louder than words.
The TACC commander said the last presidential move was exclusive to C-5s. "If I had any doubt to the C-5's supportability and reliability, it would not have gone out with our No. 1 customer in a no-fail mission."
Lichte, AMC's director of plans and programs, and Hennessey, the command's director of logistics, both stated their confidence in the C-5, and their support of the Avionics Modernization Program and the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program.
But there are several comments, one by the AMC commander himself, that have raised eyebrows in the C-5 community.
The 2003 Defense Authorization Act seeks $4 billion to buy a dozen C-17 aircraft under an existing contract and put a down payment on a multiyear contract to buy 60 more planes than planned, which would raise the C-17 fleet to 180 by 2008.
Retired Gen. Tony Robertson Jr. told Congress last year that new engines for the entire C-5 Galaxy fleet and 50 to 60 more C-17s were necessary if the Defense Department was to meet future airlift needs. The General Accounting Office has said the military would fall 31 percent short in 2005.
Gen. John Handy, who now heads AMC and TransCom, explained the C-17 purchases in a Feb. 2 article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He said the additional Globemasters can meet the airlift needs outlined in the Mobility Requirements Study - 2005, but only with the help of the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet and "and only if the C-5s hold up. And my confidence in the C-5 is not very high."
That statement is not held in very high regard in the C-5 community. Some interviewed were not aware of this statement. But many were very aware of it.
"All I'll say is this: If we shared the general's sentiments, he wouldn't have an aircrew to fly," said Master Sgt. Manny Janela, a flight engineer of 22 years.
The deep breath that preceded Lichte's answer suggested he was all too familiar with the statement. AMC's director of plans and programs said he wouldn't speak for his boss, but said he believes the general's statement is not an ultimate impression of the C-5, but instead of the way it is performing today.
Handy on April 4 gave Air Force Times this statement:
"We have an extraordinary group of maintainers and crew members. Through their dedication to the mission, they have enabled the C-5 to make a tremendous contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom. A lot of that success has been at their expense because they are working extremely long and difficult hours. We are committed to making the C-5 work but not on the backs of our maintainers and crew members. We've spent an enormous amount of money in recent years on the C-5 to upgrade systems and purchase more spares to help them keep the mission-capable rates up. We have to be smart about how we spend our dollars in the future. We need to specifically target those areas that we know will make the greatest difference and will really work. To do anything less is a disservice to our great C-5 team."
But Handy's aren't the only statements that have Galaxy crews on pins and needles.
Under questioning from Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Robertson last April 26 acknowledged dissension within the Defense Department on whether the C-5 can be fixed.
Robertson, a vocal supporter of the C-5 fleet, told Congress that his commands believed the C-5 is "fixable." He added that RERP is the "most cost-effective solution to closing the gap" in strategic airlift.
Kennedy said the Senate Armed Service Committee "is very interested" in AMP and RERP, but suggested RERP may not be the way Congress wants to go.
A back seat to the 'little brother'?
Many Galaxy airmen said they fear that once Congress decides which way it wants to go, the mighty C-5 will take a back seat to its "little brother," the C-17.
"Within the C-5 community, there is a common belief that a lot of the funding that we should be getting we are not getting because it is being directed to the C-17," Daigle said.
The 12-year veteran was quick to applaud the C-17, calling it "a great intertheater plane." But for cost effectiveness for long hauls, the captain's money is on the C-5. After all, it takes two to three C-17s and a tanker to carry the same load the same distance, he said.
"This is a great airplane," Daigle said as he guided the C-5 over the Atlantic.
"It's the only one we've got that can carry what it can carry and has the range it has. But we are incredibly underfunded. Considering the work we do, the funding just isn't right."
Janela said, "Our reliability rate is low due to funding, no question.
"I don't know where that money goes, but I know it doesn't go for parts.
"It's as if someone says, '[The C-5 is] unreliable and no good, so let's give it no parts to prove it's unreliable and no good."
According to AMC, the C-17's 2003 budget, minus aircraft procurement, is $128.2 million compared to $86 million for the C-5. In fiscal 2002, $110.1 million was spent on the C-17; $32.1 million went to the C-5.
"The funding allocated is based on the scope of effort for that period of time," AMC spokesman Lt. Col. Tom LaRock said in a written answer. "In this case, the FY02-03 funding levels represent the optimal funding levels for C-5 modernization. Future year funding will increase as we move forward with RERP."
Walsh, the 22-year flight engineer, sure hopes so. Because if tasking continues to increase but the money doesn't, "people aren't gonna stick around," he said.
And if the '04 POM, AMP and RERP are fully funded? "You'll see a significant increase in numbers - in numbers other than reliability," Walsh said. "Morale, retention … they'll all spike."
Walsh hopes that is the case.
"I simply love this aircraft," he said with a grin. "I guess you could say I drank the Kool-Aid on it."

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VA's Shared Services Center to stay open
4/18/2002

By Linda Laird
The Capital-Journal

More than 260 Topeka jobs were saved Thursday when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said it would continue operations at the VA Shared Service Center.

In March, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., urged the VA to reconsider plans to close the center, which leases space at the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center.

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi announced the decision in a letter to Roberts on Thursday.

"After careful consideration and your thoughtful input, I have decided to continue the operation of the Shared Services Center in Topeka," Principi wrote. "VA has taken into consideration the outstanding quality of its employees, the essential service they provide, as well as the potential role the Shared Services Center could provide with respect to VA programs."

Bruce Carruthers, center director, said the announcement was excellent news for his employees, the city and for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"The employees here are highly motivated, skilled and have a lot to offer the VA," Carruthers said. "I'd also like to thank the Kansas congressional delegation that played a big role in the center remaining open."

The announcement was deemed "tremendously positive" by Doug Kinsinger, president and chief executive officer of Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce and Go Topeka.

"We believe it is equally important to keep jobs in town, as well as gain new ones," Kinsinger said.

He thanked Roberts and the other Kansas legislators for their work in retaining the center.

Roberts, in a statement, lauded the positive effect on Topeka, saying: "This is great news for the city of Topeka, the employees of the VA and veterans. I am very pleased the Shared Service Center will continue to remain open and provide important services."

The center, which disburses funds for veterans, is a productive part of the Topeka economy, Roberts said in March, when arguing for the center's future.

"The employees of the Shared Service Center are enthusiastic and dedicated members of the community," he said. "It is critical they continue to serve the VA from Topeka."

Though not a part of Colmery-O'Neil, the center leases office space in Building 9 on the hospital grounds and works with the employees who work directly with veterans.

The center was developed as part of a consolidation of human resource services nationwide, but that has been put on hold for the time being, a center spokeswoman said.

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Aviation World's Fair
Partners gain 'pilot' with new executive director

April 14, 2002

Finally.

Since last summer, the Aviation World's Fair 2003 has been left to face multiple challenges without an executive director a person at the local level with the authority and ability to oversee the many aspects of preparation for the event.

But earlier this month the state announced it hired a retired Air Force brigadier general, Ron Sconyers, to fill the job. He will now be counted on to become the glue that bonds the World's Fair partners: the state, the city of Newport News, the Peninsula Airport Commission and Kallman Worldwide, the private New Jersey company putting on the fair.

Sconyers will replace Glenn Oder, who resigned in August saying he wanted to focus more on what proved to be a successful campaign for the House of Delegates. But the manner in which Oder was selected for the aviation job the state circumvented the usual competitive hiring practices clouded his tenure.

Sconyers comes free of any such controversy. He has served as chairman of the USO of Hampton Roads since his retirement, and his name may also be familiar to some Peninsula residents because of his time at Langley Air Force Base in the early '90s. After leaving Langley he served as a base commander in South Carolina and, later, as director of public affairs for the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force.

That experience and the contacts he has developed will serve the World's Fair well.

Sconyers and the various partners in the fair face many challenges. Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the national recession, the trade show portion of the three-week event to be held at Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport anticipated 1,600 exhibitors. That number may have to be revised downward, given that the fair is supposed to happen in only 12 months. Nor have any corporate sponsors been announced.

Despite the challenges, Sconyers is optimistic. And Wednesday the fair received a boost with the announcement that about a dozen air show acts will participate.

With solid local leadership in place, Hampton Roads residents should hope to be hearing more positive news about an event that can put this area, and especially Newport News, on the aviation world map.

 

2nd bid offered for third crossing
Action aids request for federal funding

By Jody Snider
Daily Press

April 13, 2002
RICHMOND -- South Carolina-based Fluor Daniel, one of the world's largest publicly owned engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance services organizations, has submitted the second bid to build the Third Crossing of Hampton Roads, creating flexibility for the state to ask for future federal financing.

Tamara Neale, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said the proposal from the Greenville, S.C.-based company was received before the bid deadline expired in late January.

The bidding process for the Third Crossing was jump-started in June when a group of high-powered road contractors Hampton Roads Constructors submitted an unsolicited proposal for the state's estimated $4.4 billion project.

Hampton Roads Constructors a joint effort by Skanska USA, the parent of Tidewater Construction Corp. in Chesapeake and the Hollandsche Beton Groep submitted a 250-page proposal to VDOT last summer for the design, construction and financing of the Third Crossing.

As a result of the unsolicited bid, the project was opened to competing bids. None were submitted.

In order to collect any future federal funding on the project, a formal call for bids on the project was made in December, a requirement of the Federal Highway Administration.

"The two proposals are now in the initial review stages, the first stage of a three-phase process, where a panel looks at the two proposals to make sure they meet the basic qualifications," Neale said. "The proposals are looked at to make sure there's a good design plan that meets the design qualifications.

"They also consider the financial feasibility of the proposal, whether there's a good financial plan in place. If there's no way to pay for the project, there's no reason to proceed."

The review process will take about a year and a half to complete, Neale said. The longest phase of the review, a nearly year-long process, asks for a detailed submission from the contractors that explain how the proposal works.

Under the proposal by Hampton Roads Constructors, the project would cost hundreds of millions less than state estimates. When submitted, the proposal included a construction start in early 2003, with the entire 13 miles of bridges and tunnels opening in 2009.

Under the state's plan, construction would begin in 2005, and the road would be open in phases through 2014. The state's estimated cost is $4.4 billion.

Neale would not release any details about the Fluor Daniel proposal, other than to say that it calls for tolls as the chief funding source. The Hampton Roads Constructors proposal also calls for tolls.

Fluor Daniel is the lead contractor in a joint venture for the financing, design and construction of the Route 895 connector in Richmond, a $324 million project that is scheduled for completion this year. Only about $24 million will come from state funding; the remainder will be financed through tolls.

Neale said Gov. Mark R. Warner has asked VDOT to improve the Public Private Transportation Act of 1995, asking that the private entities involved in large projects like the Third Crossing take a larger share in the risk and investment.

As a result, she said, the guidelines concerning the private investment in these projects are in the process of being rewritten.

"He wants the private entity to bring more to the table so the state doesn't have to pick up so much of the tab," Neale said.

Jody Snider can be reached by calling 247-7874 or by e-mail at jsnider@dailypress.com 



Upcoming 
Travis announcement pleases officials

By Ian Thompson

FAIRFIELD -- For the local leaders who lobbied so hard for the C-17 Globemaster, the upcoming announcement that the Air Force may put C-17s at Travis Air Force Base is treated as good news indeed.

The Air Force is expected to announce Monday in Washington that a squadron of 12 C-17s will be based at Travis AFB.

While pleased with the news, the area's Congressional representatives stressed the information is tentative and subject to change.

"This is great news and hopefully when AF makes their announcement on Monday," said Fairfield Mayor Karin MacMillan. "Travis will get a spot with C-17s."

"It is the best news possible," Fairfield Vice Mayor Harry Price said. "Adding C-17s does indeed strengthen the mission and makes Travis the key Air Force base on the West Coast."

Fairfield City Councilman John English called the development encouraging and "indicates that Travis is definitely a long-term viable asset for the military."

"Finally, we hit the bullseye," Fairfield City Councilman Jack Batson said of the news he said will "ensure the continuation of Travis."

"We definitely need to have new airplanes and a new mission here," Vacaville Vice Mayor Len Augustine said. "The C-17s are so flexible and they are able to take on missions that the present (Travis AFB) planes aren't capable of."

Vacaville Mayor David Fleming stated the C-17 would "make it a safer bet that the base will not be impacted by base closures."

Fairfield had long been in the front ranks of a campaign to get the C-17s that also included Travis Regional Armed Forces Committee, Vacaville and Solano County officials.

"This is one result of all those lobbying trips," Price said of the City Council's treks east to pound on the doors of Congressional, federal and military officials.

Price said the announcement is also the result of "so many council members and business leaders who recognized the tremendous value Travis represents to the whole area."

"It's very reassuring for those career military personnel who want to be assigned to Travis," Price said.

All the Congressional representatives were lauded for their support with Rep. Mike Thompson especially singled out for his work on the C-17 issue since he started on Capitol Hill.

Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bud Ross said the C-17's arrival will make the base a more efficient air mobility center.

"We will get a lot of efficiencies by having both types of aircraft here," Ross said of the C-17 and the C-5, which are already stationed at Travis AFB. "The future of Travis is dependent on a mission with a future beyond the C-5."

The arrival of the C-17s would also validate the recent effort to get an agreement with The Nature Conservancy over allowing Travis AFB to expand into the Wilcox Ranch.

"We want to retain the capability to bring in and keep the C-17 mission," Ross said of the Wilcox Ranch. "This shows the need for keeping ability to expand the base for an assault strip (for C-17 training)."

MacMillan stressed that the area still needs to be vigilant to keep Travis AFB.

"We need to be looking at other missions that would be a good fit for Travis," MacMillan said. "I look at this as a start to have future missions to come to Travis, to enhance what Travis is."

"We need to ensure the C-5 modernization continues," Batson said.

This also includes continuing the push to improve off-base housing for the military, find funding to rehabilitate and built housing units on Travis AFB and even possibly get the housing available at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, Price said.

"Work on that overall laundry list of things a community must do to ensure a military installation in their midst knows that they are welcome and that they are supported," English said.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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Securing "the future of Travis AFB"--Base likely to receive squadron of C-17 transports

By Ian Thompson

FAIRFIELD -- After years of lobbying by Fairfield officials, Travis Air Force Base may finally get a squadron of C-17 Globemaster III jet transports.

The Air Force is expected to announce Monday that Travis AFB could become home to 12 C-17s, the aircraft that replaced the C-141 Starlifter, according to a variety of sources.

"This is draft information and subject to change," said spokeswoman April Boyd of Rep. Ellen Tauscher's office. "Things could change, because it is not official."

The announcement is also expected to state that 16 C-5 Galaxy jet transports may eventually be moved out, according to Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.

Just when the the C-17s could arrive at Travis AFB, when the C-5s will depart and how much of a shift in military personnel this means for the base is not clear.

Travis AFB has 37 C-5 Galaxy jet transports. Of these, 13 are the older C-5As, 22 are C-5Bs and two are C-5Cs. The base also has 27 KC-10 Extender aerial refueling aircraft.

The Air Force is expected to make the announcement during its briefing to the House and Senate Armed Services committees Monday.

The Air Force Public Affairs Office passed any questions on the matter along to Air Mobility Command. The Air Mobility Command PAO stated only that there would be an announcement and it would involve C-17s.

Fairfield has lobbied long and hard to get C-17s based at Travis AFB, but Fairfield City Hall referred all comment on the development to the office of Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa.

"Any news from the Air Force that we will be getting a squadron of C-17s will be fantastic for Travis AFB, Solano County and the defense of this country," Thompson said. "I have been working on this issue since the day I got here with Travis AFB, city officials and county officials. It will be great news that this came to fruition."

When the announcement comes, Tauscher said, "it will prove that Travis is of tremendous strategic importance."

Tauscher said the C-17s would blend into Travis AFB's portfolio "to ensure we have the newest equipment and the ability to secure the future of Travis AFB by having such modern equipment."

"It will secure the future of Travis AFB," Tauscher said.

The Air Force is improving the reliability of the C-5 fleet by upgrading the aircraft's avionics system and putting in new engines.

Just how many C-5s will be modernized depends on the outcome of testing of the C-5A and C-5B models to see how cost-effective it is to update them.

This could mean retiring some C-5s and shuffle the portfolio with some of the C-17s.

There is a debate in Washington on how many C-17s should be bought to ensure military airlift goals are met.

In the early 1990s, Travis AFB was slated to get some of the 120 approved C-17s to make up for the retirement of the base's two C-141 squadrons.

The 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission report red-flagged Travis AFB for its lack of decent and affordable housing, prompting the Air Force to send some Travis AFB-bound C-17s to Charleston AFB, N.C. and McChord AFB, Wash.

This year, Congress approved boosting the number of C-17s to 180, which Air Force officials stated is the minimum number needed to meet airlift requirements.

But because of the war on terrorism and huge airlift requirements, even that number of C-17s needed will be recalculated upwards toward 222, according to a recent statement from Col. Michael Fricano, chief of AMC's Studies and Analysis Division.

Fairfield officials were told in March by Boeing Aircraft officials that number may even rise further to 300, depending on the outcome of the C-5 modernization efforts.

Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

 

Delivery of Anti-Terror Aid Failed

By Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 9, 2002; Page A10

At a time when states and cities are clamoring for help in responding to the threat of terrorism, the Justice Department has failed to distribute more than $141 million in grants set aside for emergency equipment, according to a report issued yesterday.

Even when the federal money was awarded, some state and local governments failed to spend it in a timely way or did not make the gear readily available to emergency workers, according to a study by the Justice Department's inspector general's office.

The items that were supposed to become available have been high on the wish lists of many jurisdictions in recent months, including personal protective gear for police, firefighters and other emergency response teams, equipment to detect chemical and biological hazards, decontamination aids and communications devices.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said the grants are urgently needed to improve the nation's readiness to respond to terrorist attacks, adding that the money "has not been getting out as fast as it needs to. Once it does, it's not spent expeditiously."

The report criticizes the Justice Department's Office for Domestic Preparedness, which distributes the money and oversees spending. As of January, the report found, the office had failed to award $141 million of the $243 million set aside by Congress.

The office has issued $102 million to 257 grantees during the past four years, according to the study. Roughly $65 million of that sum was unspent as of January, including large grants earmarked for New York, Chicago and Detroit, the inspector general found. Officials in those cities blamed local red tape, the report said.

The report found that $870,000 worth of items purchased by 11 jurisdictions "would have been unusable in the event of a terrorist attack" because personnel were not trained to use them or the equipment was in storage, missing or outmoded.

Justice Department officials said some of the delays stemmed from a congressional requirement that money be channeled through state governments only after the states submitted comprehensive plans assessing needs and outlining three-year strategies. Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft urged state governments to complete that process; so far, 48 states have been cleared for money. Ashcroft last week announced nearly $17 million of grant awards under the program to nine winners.

In an interview, Fine said that solving the problems was especially critical because much more money is on the way. The Bush administration is asking Congress to set aside $770 million for equipment for "first responders" in the fiscal 2003 budget.

President Bush's budget proposal also calls for shifting the Office for Domestic Preparedness from the Justice Department to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in order to make FEMA a clearinghouse for state and local anti-terrorist assistance.

 

Leader vows Aviation World's Fair will Fly
New executive director brings experience as Air Force general
By Peter Dujardin
Daily Press

April 6 2002

The state has tapped a retired Air Force general to lead its efforts in the Aviation World's Fair 2003.

Ron Sconyers who retired as a brigadier general in 1998, after serving in the Air Force for 28 years will be the executive director of the state's steering committee for the fair. He takes the place of Glenn Oder, who resigned a similar post in August.

"This fair is going to happen mark my words and it's going to be a success," Sconyers, said in an office at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. That's where the fair designed to include three weeks of air shows, historical displays, and national and corporate exhibits will be conducted in April 2003.

Under the contract, the state's Aviation Department will pay Sconyers' one-man company, Vector Communications, $15,000 a month, or $225,000 over 15 months from now until June 2003. Also under the contract, the state will hire a receptionist who will answer to Sconyers. It will also send one of its own project engineers to the Aviation World's Fair offices several days a week until the fair opens.

Sconyers, 54 who said he often began work at 4:30 a.m. will be responsible for overseeing the groups that are running subcommittees on such things as traffic and public safety, hotel rooms and promotions.

He will also serve as the chairman of a smaller group that oversees the larger committee, and work closely with Kallman Worldwide, the private New Jersey company putting on the fair, as well as state and airport officials.

"He's very mission-oriented," said Ken Wiegand, the director of the state's Aviation Department. "And if you work at a level of a brigadier general in the air force, you have contacts."

Sconyers, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, was formerly the director of public affairs at Air Combat Command, based at Langley Air Force Base. He was then base commander at Shaw Air Force Base, in Sumter, S.C.

His last and highest Air Force appointment was at the Pentagon, where, from 1994 to 1998, he served director of public affairs for the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force. Since his retirement, Sconyers has been chairman of the USO of Hampton Roads, which provides services to the area's military personnel and their families.

Sconyers replaces Oder, a Newport News resident and landscape architect who held the job for six months before stepping down last summer.

When the state hired Oder, it did not as is normally required post the job so that other candidates could apply. Instead, the state circumvented that hiring rule by passing the money to pay Oder's contract from a state agency that was required to abide by that rule to one that was not.

Oder is a friend of Barry E. DuVal, the state's former Sec. Of Commerce and Trade who was co-chairman of the state's steering committee on the fair.

When Oder stepped down last August, he said his resignation had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his hiring. He said he wanted to spend more time running for a House of Delegates' seat, an election he won last fall.

In Sconyers' case, the state said it had followed all standard hiring procedures to the hilt and touted what it said was an arduous selection process. Six firms applied for the job after it was posted, Wiegand said. Two firms, Sconyers' firm and a Richmond consulting firm, Carter Ryley Thomas Inc., were seriously considered, with both firms interviewed by a selection committee.

Sconyers' contract with the state is better than Oder's in some ways: It pays him $2,500 more per month than Oder was getting. It also stipulates that the state will pay for all of Sconyers' out of town expenses.

That's unlike the state's contract with Oder, which required Oder to pay such expenses out of his own pocket.

On the other hand, Sconyers' contract pays him only until the end of June of 2003, two months after the fair is over.

Oder's contract had called for him to continue getting payments until December, for eight months after the fair is over.

Since Oder resigned his post last summer, Newport News Mayor Joe Frank, one of the fair's strongest boosters, has chaired the steering committees.

Frank said he was happy to pass the reins over to Sconyers.

"We are indeed fortunate to have a community leader of his stature as part of our team," Frank said.

Fair organizer Tom Kallman added that Sconyers' leadership "will give us a tremendous advantage as he ties together all of the details."

Sconyers, who said he believes strongly in the fair, is to come up with an action plan for the next year.

"This is really crunch time for us," he said.

"There's lots to be done but not a lot of time to do it in. Nothing has been done like this before, ever. But now we're going to go forward and make it all happen."

Peter Dujardin can be reached at 247-4749 or by e-mail at pdujardin@dailypress.com
Copyright © 2002, Daily Press

 

Travis, Beale Takes Steps to Remain Open, The Sacramento Bee, April 01, 2002

By Pamela Martineau -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Monday, April 1, 2002

Even while organizing missions to fight the war in Afghanistan, officials at Travis and Beale Air Force bases are waging another battle -- to keep their installations off any future military base closure list.Bases that were once considered crucial to the military's mission have been shuttered before, officials warn. So the lobbying to keep Travis and Beale operational continues, even though Congress recently postponed the next round of closures to 2005."It's hard to quantify how large the concern over closure is ... because base realignment and closure (BRAC) can apply to any base," said 1st Lt. Angela Arredondo, a Travis public affairs officer. "It's difficult to make a base BRAC-proof."In the 1990s, Northern California lost a number of bases to military downsizing, including Mather and McClellan Air Force bases, the Sacramento Army Depot and Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo. Also closed were the Alameda Naval Air Station, the Treasure Island Naval Station and Presidio in San Francisco.Federal officials view base closures as a way to trim what they believe is a bloated bureaucracy.Since 1988, the Department of Defense has shut down 451 military installations in four rounds of base closures, the last round occurring in 1995.Pentagon officials have recently said they believe 20 percent of the nation's remaining military bases should be closed and their missions transferred to other installations.Efforts to keep Travis off the closure list intensified in recent years after seven area cities and Solano County -- where Travis is located -- hired a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to advocate for the base. The county also received a state grant to develop a base retention plan.Tim Johnson, executive director of the Yuba Sutter Economic Development Corp., is spearheading the lobbying campaign for Beale, outside of Marysville.Local officials near both bases view the installations as vital to the region's economy, and they are urging their counterparts throughout the Sacramento area to join their efforts."If you, as a community, are not weighing in on the (base closure) discussion, you stand to lose the battle," said John Thompson, Vacaville city manager.Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, whose district includes Travis, said he believes it is highly unlikely the base would be on the 2005 closure list."The geographic location and the importance of the mission is so critical, it makes no sense at all to shut down Travis," saidThompson, a member of the Armed Services Committee.Sustaining current missions -- and garnering new ones -- is viewed by military advocates as the key to keeping a base open.Officials appear optimistic about Beale's future because it is home to the U-2, a plane used extensively in Afghanistan for its high-altitude reconnaissance.Beale also is scheduled to receive the new Global Hawk reconnaissance plane, also being flown in Afghanistan. The new planes will be brought in gradually. By 2008, officials expect 18 Global Hawks to be stationed at Beale. The new mission will bring 725 new personnel, followed by an estimated 2,000 family members."We're going to have lots of growth," said Air Force Capt. Mike Strickler, Beale's chief of public affairs.Officials who lobby for Travis point to the extensive use of the base's KC-10 midair refueling planes and the C-5 cargo planes in Afghanistan as an advantage for the base.Paul Hirsch, president of Madison Government Affairs, a Washington, D.C., firm hired to lobby for Travis, said Air Force officials are considering retrofitting the nation's fleet of C-5s with new engines to give them faster lift and reduce their noise.Hirsch believes the Air Force's continued focus on the C-5 is critical for Travis, which is one of only two bases in the nation to house a large number of the planes. "If we lost the C-5, we would be in hot water," he said.Hirsch is pushing for the base to acquire some C-17 aircraft, a newer cargo plane being flown in Afghanistan. The C-5s are typically used to haul cargo long distances to the war theater, while C-17s are used within the war zone to transfer goods from one site to another.Base advocates also are trying to ensure that there is enough high-quality, affordable housing for military personnel in areas surrounding the installations. They say a base is more vulnerable for closure if housing for personnel is a problem.Last year, the Department of Defense allocated an average 38 percent increase in the housing allowance for Travis' personnel. At Beale, efforts are under way to privatize on-base management to help upgrade and maintain the buildings.Strickler said he believes many of the families who will move to Beale with the Global Hawk may choose to live in fast-growing Lincoln or Roseville.Travis employs about 3,500 civilians and 7,300 active duty military personnel. Air Force officials estimate Travis annually contributes more than $1 billion to the local economy.Beale's contribution is about $340 million, officials estimate, and in 2008, when the Global Hawk mission is at full capacity, another $150 million is expected to be added to the local economy.About 3,100 active-duty personnel work at the base, along with roughly 850 civilian employees.The Bee's Pamela Martineau can be reached at (916) 321-1074 or pmartineau@sacbee.com .


 

Writing a Budget For Reelection Lawmakers in Tight Races Aim To Bring Big Spending Home

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002

Republicans are casting a covetous eye on the Senate seat occupied by Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who faces a strong challenge from Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) in November's midterm elections. But Johnson has one big advantage over his well-funded rival. It's called the federal budget.

With considerable help from Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who appointed him to the Appropriations Committee last year, Johnson has secured tens of millions of dollars for South Dakota projects, trumpeting them in news releases such as this one in January: "Through Johnson's seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and Senator Daschle's position as Majority Leader, they were able to secure an additional $4 million in emergency funds for the cities of Philip and Wall."

Along with Daschle, Johnson also claims credit for a provision in the 2002 defense appropriations bill that would protect a South Dakota gold-mine owner from environmental lawsuits. The measure is a first step toward building a government physics lab in the soon-to-be-shuttered mine, at an estimated construction cost of $280 million.

Steering federal resources back home is a big part of what many politicians in Washington do, and leaders of both parties have routinely leaned on the appropriations panels to make extra efforts for lawmakers in tight races. But the pressures surrounding this election cycle are especially high. With Republicans hoping to overcome the Democrats' razor-thin Senate majority, and Democrats eyeing the handful of seats they need to win back the House, each side is touting its ability to win projects for constituents via "earmarks" to federal spending bills.

"We've seen a jump in the number of requests that we get, and there's been a jump in the amount we've done," a GOP aide involved in the appropriations process said. "I think there are a lot of reasons for that, and the closeness of the election is probably one. . . . That's what we do. You take care of your own people.

"Often derided as "pork," earmarks have more than tripled in number over the last four years, to 7,803 in the latest crop of spending bills, according to a White House tally. The Bush administration has sharply criticized the trend. "The practice politely called congressional earmarking mars merit-based processes for distributing the American people's resources," the president's recent budget proposal declares.

But administration spending decisions are hardly untainted by politics. With an eye on November, for example, White House political adviser Karl Rove's office took pains to ensure that Thune could share credit with Johnson for the South Dakota physics lab. That meant overriding Justice Department objections to the gold-mine liability measure and pushing to include $10 million for the project in the administration's 2003 budget, according to a GOP congressional aide close to discussions surrounding the project."

The political people in the White House were extremely involved in this and pushing as hard for the project as Daschle," the aide said. "Everyone was led to understand that this was being treated as something vital to the Senate race that was most likely to produce a Republican pickup."

Amy Call, spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the office worked with Thune to get the liability measure through Congress in a form acceptable to the administration. She acknowledged Rove's staff "might have talked to our policy staff about how the discussions were going."

Last spring, the administration restored $93 million to an Arkansas highway project after an appeal from Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), whose seat is considered vulnerable in November. An OMB spokesman at the time said the administration had based its earlier decision to cut the funding on incomplete information.

At least in Washington, neither lawmakers nor administration officials like to admit the role that politics plays in determining how to spend taxpayers' money. They are much less reticent with voters back home.

In South Dakota, Daschle often reminds constituents of the budgetary influence he wields as the most powerful Democrat in Washington -- a tactic that helps explain his continuing popularity in a state where President Bush won 60 percent of the vote in 2000."

People in South Dakota are well aware that we receive a tremendous amount of federal assistance in various forms and that their congressional leadership is the primary vehicle by which it comes to the state," said Bill Richardson, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota. "That is certainly factored into their decision when they walk into the voting booth."

Over the last year, Daschle has worked hard to help Johnson secure his political base, a task that has assumed even more significance since Democrats gained their one-seat advantage in the Senate in June.

Johnson was regarded as vulnerable even before Thune entered the race with strong backing from Bush. Daschle named Johnson to the Appropriations Committee early last year. Johnson said in a statement at the time, "I will be able to continue my aggressive advocacy for South Dakota's agricultural producers . . . [and help] South Dakota communities pursue funding for projects."

He has delivered: The 2002 appropriations bill for labor, health and education programs included 27 South Dakota earmarks worth $18.3 million, most of them added by Johnson and Daschle, according to GOP congressional staff. The earmarks direct money to schools, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as more obscure projects such as the Intertribal Bison Cooperative ($300,000).

Thune also played a role in securing the South Dakota earmarks, but his leverage is diminished because he doesn't sit on the House Appropriations Committee.

Johnson, describing his campaign strategy in an interview earlier this year, said he was running in part on his "clout" as an Appropriations Committee member "at a time when the budget is going to be extraordinarily tight." He added, "We have three of the largest drinking water projects in the world under construction in South Dakota. The president has underfunded all of them. Where is South Dakota going to get the money unless they have a member on the Appropriations Committee?"

The idea of converting South Dakota's Homestake Gold Mine to a physics lab began with scientists led by John Bahcall, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who approached Daschle's office for help, Daschle spokesman Jay Carson said. Bahcall and other scientists said the mine would be an ideal place to study subatomic particles called neutrinos because its 8,000-foot depth would shield experiments from radiation.

Johnson jumped on the bandwagon, saying in a January 2001 news release that the project "could mean nearly 150 jobs for mine support and as many as 200 individuals from the mine community." In another release in August, Johnson boasted that he had "successfully inserted" $10 million for the project in the appropriations bill for veterans' and housing programs.

He then joined Daschle in winning Senate passage in November of legislation demanded by the mine owner, Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., to protect the company from lawsuits that might arise from environmental damage caused by the century-old operation. In return, the company would transfer ownership to South Dakota, which would then turn the mine over to the National Science Foundation for a laboratory.

Some administration officials questioned the project. In a draft letter addressed last year to Daschle, Daniel J. Bryant, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, warned that "with respect to environmental claims, the U.S.'s liability would potentially be unlimited" under the legislation.

But the letter was never sent, in part because Rove's office urged the Justice Department to reach an accommodation with Daschle so Thune could also claim credit for the project, the GOP aide familiar with the discussions said. A Justice Department official said Bryant's office withheld the letter after "it was recommended you might want to work with Daschle" on the bill.

The official declined to say who in the White House made the recommendation or whether Thune's Senate campaign was a factor. The official said that after the bill left the Senate for the House, Thune worked successfully with the administration and House Republican leaders to make improvements aimed at reducing taxpayer liability. As a result, the official said, the Justice Department did not take a position on the bill's final version, which cleared the House and Senate on Dec. 20.

Much to Daschle's and Johnson's irritation, Thune has since run campaign ads touting his "bipartisan" efforts on behalf of the Homestake project (which is now stalled because the company objects to the changes made to the liability language in the House). His chief of staff, Jafar Karim, said Rove and his staff "have an awareness" of Thune's efforts to secure administration support for the liability provision and project funding, but he declined to provide details of White House involvement.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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Base Closures May Target Panhandle
MATT MOORE
Business Editor

SANDESTIN - In a room filled with more than 200 Panhandle business and civic leaders, Paul J. Hirsch immediately got everyone's attention.
Another round of military base closures is imminent given the low level of funding provided by Congress to the U.S. military, he said.
Without money to back it, the fighting force will operate like a business - shedding core assets and "downsizing" workers.
Hirsch, director of review and analysis for the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) from 1991 to 1993, said a new round of base closings is on the horizon and will impact all of Northwest Florida including Tyndall Air Force Base, the U.S. Navy Coastal Systems Stations and installations in Okaloosa and Escambia counties.
"The next BRAC will be even more difficult and more competitive, since 'low-hanging' fruit is gone, and we will be cutting closer to the bone," he said. "What should be of concern to the country is a BRAC. Be prepared."
The audience was gathered for the annual Gulf Power Co. economic symposium. Hirsch said the next round of base closures could begin as early as 2001.
"It will never be an even-numbered year because that is an election year in Congress," he said.
The only way communities can protect their military installations is to be vocal, he said.
"Let your Congressional delegation know that you're interested," he said. "And state and regional leaders need to know that you're interested. Don't rely on Washington, D.C., and the Congress for the only answers."
Hirsch also said communities must do whatever they can to enhance the quality of bases. If that means repairing with local funds nearby roadways leading to a base, then do it, he said. Things like that get noticed, he said.
Parker Mayor Brenda Hendricks said Bay County's previous scrapes with the BRAC process drove home Hirsch's statements.
"If we lost Tyndall, we've lost," she said. "Tyndall is our neighborhood, and the people stationed there live here."
Bay County experienced several brushes with the BRAC process, but emerged largely unscathed during the 1991, 1993 and 1995 rounds.
Jim Cherry said Bay County BRAC Inc. has maintained a stance of "eternal vigilance" and guarded the county's interests in the light of previous BRAC rounds. It has remained that way since the last base closure round in 1995.
"Right now, we've got several people meeting with our congressional delegation in Washington, D.C.," he said.
And given the threat of future base closures, Cherry said the days of communities with bases helping one another could be numbered.
"In the past, the communities have had a mutual understanding," he said. "That's kind of gone by the way side. We've got to guard against people and communities from coming and taking elements of CSS and Tyndall."
And Hirsch said making closures less predictable is politics - because the process, largely criticized as too political in nature, has remained political.
He said congressional leaders would protect the interests of their districts first and foremost. As an example, he cited a recent decision to send several C-130 airplanes to Marietta, the district represented by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He also said states with strong political leaders would benefit in a struggle that would pit states against states and even regions against regions.
He said several Western states have already banded together to try and convince the Air Force to move all of its pilot training there citing the wide open spaces and lack of hurricanes prevalent in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Of course they neglected to mention the earthquakes," he said.
And he said a sitting Congress where only a third of its 535 members has been in the military, may not realize the importance of a strong national defense or its impact on communities with a military presence for years.
By communicating and campaigning for their communities, Hirsch said people show the decision-makers how important military bases are to the communities in danger of losing them.
"If you don't do these things . . . you'll be looking at defense conversion," he said while he showed a cartoon of two military bases: one with the word Air Force crossed out and a man selling oranges, and the second showing a submarine base selling ice cream.

 

Base Leads In County's Economy
By Jason Massad/Reporter Staff

The juggernaut of Solano County's economy grew even larger during fiscal 2001, as the regional economic impact of Travis Air Force Base reached $1.082 billion during fiscal year 2001.

The figure, part of a report issued by Travis this week, represents a $290-million increase in the air base's regional economic impact from fiscal year 2000, and is driven largely by the activity of the air base and the spending by some 14,000 personnel and their families.

The base's total expenditures in 2001 were approximately $906 million. That figure, and the estimated dollar value of jobs created by the base, some $176 million, accounts for the regional economic impact for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 2001.

"Travis represents a tremendous economic boon to Northern California," Col. David Lefforge, commander of the base's 60th Air Mobility Wing, said in the report. "More important is the portrait painted by the figures: Travis people and our impressive collection of resources represent nothing short of a national treasure worthy of our continued care and attention."

According to the report, the 2001 payroll for the base totaled $451 million. This includes pay for some 7,300 active-duty personnel, nearly 3,600 reserves, and 3,500 civilian employees who spend their paychecks within a 50-mile radius of the base.

Through grocery stores, department stores and other outlets, the local economy received 52 cents on the dollar from Travis payroll, or roughly $235 million, according to the report. Payroll spending was the largest single base expenditure to be pumped into the local economy.

Approximately 5,500 jobs were created in 2001 as a result of the base's presence.

Active-duty military personnel were responsible for creating 3,000 of those jobs. Reserve-duty personnel and civilian employees accounted for the creation of 2,500 jobs. The job-related data assume an average salary of $32,000.The powerful economics of the base, however, do not address the military mission of the base's massive transport capability, said Solano County Supervisor Duane Kromm. The air base's military mission has garnered much media attention in recent months for its role on the war campaign being waged abroad.

"The first importance of Travis is not the economics, but national defense and what that does for us," Kromm said. "Second is its economic impact."

Not included in the base's economic impact are the approximately 53,000 military retirees and their families that reside in and around Solano County. Nevertheless, these retirees make a strong economic contribution.

According to the report, the retirees who live in a 50-mile radius of the air base contribute an average of $669.2 million per year to the local economy.

Vacaville Mayor David Fleming noted that many of these residents get non-military jobs in the local economy. From a local government standpoint, he said, they are good citizens because their children are often grown, which reduces impact on local schools, and the retirees are not a burden on police."They are good citizens," he said. "They're (also) less of a cost to the cities and the county."Vacaville ranks highest among Solano County cities in the number of off-base personnel. Some 1,000, or 14 percent, reside in the city. Additionally, some 334 reservists live in Vacaville, the highest percentage among reservists.The report addresses the base's struggle for affordable housing in the area. Progress was made in 2001, Lefforge said, including the completion of 228 homes that are "the new standard for military family housing." Military personnel living off base received an average of a 38-percent increase in housing allowance during the 2001 fiscal year, Lefforge said.

"(This helps) close the gap between what families assigned here earn and the cost of rents and mortgages in what remains a very expensive housing market," he said in the report.

Jason Massad can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

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Fairfield battles in D.C. to assure future of Travis
City leaders try to learn what it might take for the Air Force base to stay off a list of military facilities targeted for closure.
By Lara Rohr/Reporter Staff

The bigger Travis Air Force Base is, the less likely it is to fall.
That is what Fairfield City Council members are learning on a lobbying trip to Washington D.C., where they spent Tuesday meeting with congressional and military representatives on behalf of Travis.
It is not that Travis necessarily needs to grow physically; it needs to grow in its military importance to convince officials it needs to remain open, said Paul Hirsch, a professional lobbyist hired by Solano County and a consortium of local cities. Hirsch, with Madison Government Affairs, is working on keeping Travis off a list known as Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC.
Another round of BRAC cuts is scheduled to come down the pike in 2005, according to Hirsch. Congress already has approved the measure, he said, and it is up to President George W. Bush to set the process in motion.
"New projects as we approach BRAC will enhance the military value of Travis Air Force Base," Hirsch said, speaking Tuesday from Washington, where he accompanied Fairfield city officials on a round of meetings. "We feel Travis is very well-positioned at this point, but you can't rest on your laurels."
Mayor Karin MacMillan and Councilmen Harry Price and Jack Batson met with representatives of the Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. They also met with Fred Kuhn, the Air Force deputy assistant secretary of installation.
"Our purpose in talking to Lockheed was about the re-engining and avionics of the C-5s," MacMillan said, naming a type of airlift based at Travis.
Extending the life of the C-5 fleet could translate into extending the life of Travis, MacMillan explained. Hirsch said funding to modify the C-5s is in Bush's budget, as is millions of dollars to replace base housing for families. He said those projects can only increase Travis's value in the eyes of BRAC officials, much as the new radar control tower built last year did.
Staff writer Lara Rohr can be reached at vacaville@the reporter.com.

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Nut Tree Airport Office Complex Gets Approval
By Ian Thompson
March 14, 2002

VACAVILLE - Plans to build a three-story office complex at the Nut Tree Airport got the nod from the Vacaville City Council Tuesday night.
The only concerns the councilmembers raised were that the building's non-aviation occupants could compete with the city's plans to redevelop the adjacent Nut Tree site.
Solano County, the Nut Tree Airport's owners, wants to put up the 56,630-square-foot building on a 4.6-acre site on the east side of Airport Road.
The county asked the council to amend the site's zoning to allow them to put non-aviation-related uses in the building.
Airport Manager John Swizer told the council that while the change allows the county more flexibility, the plans are to keep any occupants as aviation-related as possible.
In other business, the council reversed a Planning Commission decision and denied the request from a Columbine Court day care business that wanted to expand.
Neighbors said the expansion would create more traffic with parents picking up and dropping off kids and more noise from the additional number of children.
The council also amended the zoning along Lawrence Drive to allow senior-restricted apartments on a 1.9-acre parcel next to the Lemon Tree Mobile Home Park.
Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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Alliance Works To Keep Base Open
By Ian Thompson
January 31, 2002


VACAVILLE - Efforts to draft a blueprint to keep Travis Air Force Base viable and off the 2005 base closure list started this week with a series of fact-finding meetings.
Madison Government Affairs, the lobbying firm hired by an alliance of Solano County governments, has already spent two days talking to Travis AFB officials and met Wednesday with Vacaville and Fairfield representatives.
The lobbyists spent most of the afternoon meeting answering questions before heading to another meeting at the office of Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.
Vacaville officials want to investigate getting more missions for Travis AFB. Already, the Army and Navy have people working at the Air Force base.
They also criticized the lack of visible support for the base from the state's Congressional delegation, stressing that such support has to be part of the plan.
"We need some recommendations to wake up the California delegation," said Darby Hayes, a Solano County administrative analyst.
The consultant plans to use these opinions and goals to create a base retention plan to map out what Fairfield, Vacaville, Solano County and their allies need to do to address Travis AFB's weaknesses, attract more missions and deal with possible threats.
Fairfield has used the Washington lobbying firm for years to represent its Travis Air Force Base-related interests.
But the city asked for help from other government agencies to pay for an increased role for the consultants amid the growing concern over a lack of affordable housing for military people and the specter of a round of base closures looming in 2005.
Last year, other agencies including Vacaville, Solano County, Vallejo and the Solano Economic Development Corp. signed on to contribute to the lobbying and the retention plan.
Paul Hirsch of Madison gave the officials a largely upbeat report, saying the current proposed defense budget is the largest since the Reagan years and the post-Sept. 11 military campaign has improved Travis AFB's status.
"The Air Force feels Travis AFB is viable and we need to continue that," added lobbyist Carl Franklin of International Falcon Associates, a retired Air Force general Madison brought on to help with the lobbying and report.
Two programs to improve the C-5 Galaxy's reliability by upgrading the aircraft's avionics and engines suffered last year when $70 million dropped out of the proposed $257 million C-5 budget.
"That will slow the modernization of the entire fleet," Hirsch said.
Fairfield Economic Development Project Manager Joe Lucchio, who is working with Hirsch, expects to see a draft of the plan in May, he said.
Ian Thompson can be reached at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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Saving Travis Won't Be Easy
By Lara Rohr/Reporter Staff

Local communities have a good shot at keeping Travis Air Force Base open, but it's going to take a lot of work.
That was the consensus Wednesday among three lobbyists working for various Solano County entities to keep Travis off federal closure lists. Known as Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, the process is supposed to trim federal infrastructure costs by shutting down military bases that, for whatever reasons, are no longer considered viable.
According to Paul Hirsch with Madison Government Affairs, who is overseeing the Travis efforts, another round of BRAC cuts is scheduled to come down the pike in 2005. Congress already has approved the measure, he said, and it is up to President George W. Bush to set the process in motion.
Solano cities, Solano Community College, Solano Economic Development Corp. and the county itself have banded together to keep Travis from falling prey to the BRAC rounds. Hirsch and his colleagues, Carl Franklin of International Falcon Associates and Nordie Norwood of Norwood and Associates, are spending this week gathering information from those groups.
That includes interviews and meetings with Travis, city and county officials, as well as the Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce, the Travis Regional Armed Forces Committee, Congressional district offices and the state Office of Military Base Retention and Reuse.
Hirsch, Franklin and Norwood all sounded optimistic but cautious Wednesday regarding Travis' chances for survival.
"On a visceral level, a gut level, we agree with everyone in this room" that Travis is vitally important, Norwood said.
He continued: "Travis is a great base with a great mission that's very important to the United States of America. ... We've got lots of opinions, but opinion isn't what's going to save the day."
Both local officials and the consultants cited Operation Enduring Freedom when outlining Travis' importance to the nation's defense. Brigadier General (Select) David Lefforge said recently that a quarter of Travis' 7,000 enlisted personnel have deployed either on the overseas mission, or on Operation Noble Eagle, which is intended to increase security at home. He said Travis has shipped out 1.4-million pounds of food supplies for Operation Enduring Freedom.
"Obviously, we agree that Travis is very, very important," Franklin said.
But sometimes that isn't enough, he said, adding later: "I certainly have seen, and (Norwood and Hirsch) have seen, bases that have closed in spite of having a viable mission," he said.
Hirsch said a final report with recommendations and strategies will be available in June. In the meantime, the group will be sending monthly reports to the city of Fairfield, as the lead agency.
o Lara Rohr can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

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Felker Delivers Optimistic State of the City Address

By Mike Hall
The Capital-Journal

The Topeka Boulevard Bridge is crumbling and some major employers are downsizing, but there is some good news for Topeka, too.
According to Mayor Butch Felker, the opening of the new, expanded public library is a good sign, as are the hiring of Doug Kinsinger as president of the chamber of commerce and Go Topeka and the appointment of Richard Forester as president of the Topeka Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Felker, delivering his State of the City speech Thursday night during the annual meeting of Downtown Topeka Inc., outlined the challenges facing the city and the hopeful signs for overcoming them.
Sure, the Topeka economy is struggling, he said, but not as badly as that in other parts of the nation.
There have been cutbacks at Westar Energy and Payless ShoeSource, the closure of Farmland Industries and potential cutbacks at Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. But tax revenues and applications for building permits indicate the Topeka economy hasn't suffered as much as the national economy, he said.
And the four-year sales tax approved by voters in November 2000 will provide more than $20 million over the next four years for acquisition of industrial parks, job training and other activities to encourage expansion of local industry and attraction of new industry.
The crime rate was down another 3 percent in 2001, but more needs to be done, he said.
He said Topeka City Councilman Duane Pomeroy would soon be bringing to the council crime reduction proposals developed from last summer's Crime Summit.
Felker said more than 80 percent of the city's crime is drug-related. Addressing the drug trade, providing more and better jobs and training Topekans to fill those jobs should help bring the crime rate down further.
Many Topekans have a negative attitude that holds the community back, but that may be changing, Felker said.
"The rededication of the library and visit by the first lady, along with the ceremony surrounding the Olympic Torch showed that this community has that positive attitude," he said.
The biggest challenge facing city government, he said, is paying for all the infrastructure needs. The estimates on replacing the Topeka Boulevard Bridge continue to be $35 million to $40 million. City officials are seeking help from the state and federal governments so debt service on the project won't prevent the city from doing other badly needed work, such as improving streets around a Topeka Unified School District 501 sports complex at S.W. 6th and Oakley.
The speech received good reviews from those at the dinner.
Kinsinger said he liked Felker's enthusiasm and his theme of teamwork to move the city forward.
"His theme seemed to be (that) the team has come together and now is the time to perform," Kinsinger said.
Councilwoman Betty Dunn, serving this year as deputy mayor on the council, also liked the enthusiasm.
"Enthusiasm is so high in Topeka right now and I think the mayor conveyed that tonight," she said.
Vic Miller, the only member of the Shawnee County Commission to attend, said it was an effective speech.
"Butch takes a pretty practical approach to things," he said. "He doesn't make his wish list so long that it's not practical."
Mike Hall can be reached at (785) 295-1193 or mhall@cjonline.com.

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Go Topeka Will Try to Help VA Facility

By Alicia Henrikson
The Capital-Journal

The board in charge of a quarter percent sales tax authorized Go Topeka on Wednesday to spend up to $55,000 to hire a government relations consultant in Washington, D.C.
Douglas Kinsinger, Go Topeka president and president and chief executive officer of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce, told the Joint Economic Development Organization that Go Topeka wants to enlist Madison Government Affairs to ensure Topeka has a voice in decisions involving the Veterans Affairs Shared Service Center at Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center.
"A decision will be made (by the Department of Veterans Affairs) on the matter in February and I think it would behoove us to retain the group," he said. "By putting them on retainer, I think it will give us a higher priority."
The VA Shared Service Center is a human resource payroll center for VA employees and does such things as enrolling employees into health insurance programs, said Carolyn Jackson, public affairs officer for the center. She said the center employs about 260 people, who work with about 170 VA organizations nationwide.
"The role of the center is being reassessed and no decision has been made on its future at this time," Jackson said.
After Wednesday's meeting, Kinsinger pointed out that the federal government is the second-largest employer in Topeka and that the VA Shared Service Center is thought to be undergoing a review about its "potential future" in Topeka. State government is the city's largest employer.
"We want to make sure that our community's interest is being represented and considered when those decisions are being made," he said. "We think there is a wise business decision for that facility to be located here as a shared administrative facility for the VA and we just want to make sure we're involved. There are 270 positions that are currently quality jobs for our community and we're going to be working with our delegation to make sure that we have input into those decisions."
The seven-member JEDO board, which was meeting for the first time, unanimously agreed to support the use of the funds. Of the $55,000, $50,000 will go toward retaining Madison Government Affairs and $5,000 will pay for travel to Washington, D.C. The money will come from an advance from the city before sales tax money is available starting in 2003.
JEDO is the organization created by the city and county to oversee spending of the four-year, quarter percent sales tax approved by voters in November 2000. Over the four years, the tax will generate $20 million for economic development and additional money for bridge repair and replacement.
The board consists of Shawnee County Commissioners Ted Ensley, Marice Kane and Vic Miller, Mayor Butch Felker, deputy mayor and Councilwoman Betty Dunn, and Councilwomen Vanessa Hill and Lisa Stubbs. City council members who don't have a vote act as ex-officio members.
During the meeting, Kinsinger outlined Go Topeka's strategic plan for 2002. The organization has set goals, which include bringing in 250 new jobs with an average wage of $15.15 or more in the county and $12 million in new investments in the community.
"People have been very happy to help and I am excited about our future and I am confident about our success," Kinsinger said, "But we need to work well together because how successful we are will be based on that."
Kinsinger said people have different ideas about what constitutes economic development. Go Topeka's primary thought is that it means bringing in new money and "growing the economy," he said.
JEDO board members plan to vote at 3 p.m. next Wednesday at the Shawnee County Health Agency's auditorium on an agreement designating Go Topeka as the group that will conduct the economic development program to be funded by the sales tax.
The board agreed it would regularly meet at 3 p.m. Wednesdays on a 6-1 vote. Stubbs dissented.
In other action, the board appointed Dunn vice chairwoman. Miller is the chairman this year.
Alicia Henrikson can be reached at (785) 295-1192 or ahenrikson@cjonline.com.

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