 Southern bases look to redevelop
after panel recommends closures
Associated Press WASHINGTON - A commission sent President Bush a military realignment proposal on Friday that was less kind to Southern bases than the Pentagon wanted, and affected communities in the region were moving ahead with redevelopment plans even as their lawmakers hoped for last-minute changes. The independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission ultimately approved all but 14 percent of the closings and consolidations sought by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Many of the rollbacks came as bad news for the South, but few decisions to salvage bases or major missions benefited the region. "The commissioners seemed to feel that the Pentagon had been too hard on the Northeast and it was their job to rebalance the decisions in order to prevent the demilitarization of New England," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. Thompson said he expected Bush and Congress to approve the commission's recommendations. Still, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., was holding out hope something could be done to restore the Pentagon's initial proposal to close Navy bases in Connecticut and Maine. Those would have meant major job gains at Kings Bay Submarine Station in Georgia and Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia. The BRAC panel reversed those decisions, but Chambliss suggested Bush should rethink them because they accounted for 80 percent of the Navy's cost savings. The commission's final deliberations were particularly bad news for Georgia, which not only failed to gain jobs at Kings Bay but still lost four bases to closure - Naval Air Station-Atlanta, Fort Gillem and Fort McPherson in the Atlanta area and a small Navy supply school in Athens. "The chances of a base getting off the list at this point is remote," said Gen. Philip Y. Browning, executive director of the Georgia Military Affairs Coordinating Committee, which shepherded Georgia through the closure process. When it comes to finding a future after closure, however, the Georgia bases figure to have more options than some of the other doomed Southern bases, such as Naval Station Pascagoula in Mississippi or the Naval Support Activity in New Orleans. Under the redevelopment process, federal and state agencies get first dibs on former military property before it is turned over to the community for private development. Often Southern bases are passed over because they are in less-populated areas, with a smaller available workforce, but Atlanta is a major exception. Some agencies have already expressed interest in maintaining a presence at Gillem or McPherson, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which currently houses trailers there, said Fred Bryant, executive director for the McPherson-Gillem Foundation. Browning said the community may actually prefer private development because of property taxes, which would be waived if the government retains the property. "Our problem may be we've got too many people interested" in the base properties, he said. In late October, community leaders from the Southern bases targeted for closure or realignment will gather in Atlanta for a briefing by Pentagon officials for how to redevelop their bases. One classic success story is found nearby. Fort McClellan in Alabama was shuttered during the last closure round in 1995 but has re-emerged as the Center for Domestic Preparedness - the pre-eminent training hub for first responders to terrorist attacks. "They could learn a lot from McClellan," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Alabama was relatively unscathed during the closure process this time, but the BRAC panel did reverse what would have been some major job gains for the Anniston Army Depot and Fort Rucker. Less lucky in the South was Virginia's Fort Monroe, now targeted for closure. It dates to the 1800s and is the headquarters for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Its redevelopment prospects are unclear. Kentucky's Fort Knox will survive at the expense of its famous armor school, which is moving to Fort Benning in Georgia. In exchange, the post will hold the newly consolidated Army Human Resources Command and a new active combat unit. While losing its temporary student population, the post will gain about 4,800 permanent personnel. Thompson said sometimes communities benefit more from closing a base than from simply gutting it by removing key missions. "The problem that communities losing jobs face is that they're not going to have immediate access to the bases," Thompson said. "They have workers leaving, which has an economic impact, and nothing really being created in their place that would keep the economy intact." ON THE NET |