Supporters of County’s Bases Can Breathe Easier

A U.S. Senate committee’s decision to nix new rounds of military base closures could buy Ventura County some time to beef up its bases against inevitable cuts, officials said Saturday.

Bracing for another round of military consolidations as early as 1999, business and civic leaders were elated with the news that the Senate Armed Services Committee had rejected the Pentagon’s base closure proposal earlier this week.

“Whatever their motivation was, I don’t care,” county Supervisor John K. Flynn said. “I think it’s great. It will get us some breathing room.”

Still, Flynn and other leaders believe future base cuts are inevitable and that local supporters must continue their fight to fend off future assaults on the county’s Navy bases.

That includes finding ways to cut costs, bringing in more military units and luring private-sector companies into research opportunities at the Point Mugu naval base.

Point Mugu, which tests weapons on its open sea range, appeared particularly vulnerable to a new round of base closures, since the Pentagon was targeting research and testing facilities.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s decision Thursday does not in itself eliminate the threat of base closures next year. But political observers say it is very unlikely even an amended proposal to create another base closure commission could reach the Senate floor in time for a vote this year.

The committee’s vote followed a May report by the Pentagon, the largest strategic review since the end of the Cold War.

The report called for new rounds of base closures to free up cash for new weapons and troop readiness, emphasizing a need to scale back the number of weapons development labs, test ranges and military training centers.

The General Accounting Office last year said the Pentagon has 35% too much capacity in its labs and test ranges.

In addition to Point Mugu, California lawmakers worried that the closures could target the China Lake Naval Weapons Center and Edwards Air Force Base.

Grace Vaswani, a Ventura-based military contractor, said she was not surprised to see the proposal for a new base closure commission shot down.

The idea, she said, was the brainchild of the Department of Defense, not Congress. “I didn’t think there would be a whole lot of support politically,” she said Saturday.

With its corporate offices in Ventura, Vaswani’s Santa Barbara Applied Research Inc. does everything from managing government warehouses and libraries to the high-tech world of underwater vehicles, cable, power and computer information systems.

When and if another round of base closures does begin, she believes the Ventura County bases will prove easily defensible in the eyes of Congress, because of ongoing efforts at Mugu to cut costs and bring in more private-sector companies for research projects.

Indeed, civic and business leaders fighting to protect the local bases believe it is vital to Mugu’s future to increase partnerships with local companies for engineering and scientific research.

Also, five western states including California have formed the Southwest Defense Alliance to give their bases more political power over their East Coast competitors.

Flynn, chairman of the Ventura County Regional Defense Partnership lobbying group, said he will travel within the month to Arizona and New Mexico, hoping to persuade communities there to join the five-state coalition.

And by fall, he said, a county delegation will make another lobbying trip to Washington on behalf of the bases.

Still, Flynn cautions even without a base closure commission, threats of cutbacks to the local bases remain, particularly since the Secretary of Defense has the authority to approve some spending cutbacks without congressional approval.

Although local bases have been spared from all-out closure in recent years, county officials and base supporters say more than 3,500 defense-related jobs have been lost at Port Hueneme and Point Mugu through ongoing downsizing efforts. Together, the bases contribute nearly $1 billion annually to the local economy.

“We’ve been losing the bases by attrition for some time,” said Carolyn Leavens, past president and executive board member of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “It’s just been piecemeal.”