County Forum Focuses on Smooth Sailing for Bases

County officials and community leaders got a crash course Friday on how to best market the county’s two Navy bases to a cost-conscious Department of Defense in hopes of preserving what area leaders have labeled a “vital economic foundation for Ventura County.�

After spending two days touring the installations, officials from the state’s Office of Base Preservation and several independent consultants offered advice on how to save Point Mugu’s Naval Air Weapons Station and the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion from the budget guillotine.

“These are desperate times for the military, and if you think you’re going to maintain the status quo, you’re sadly mistaken,� said Judy Ann Miller, director of the Office of Base Preservation, to an audience that included County Supervisor Frank Schillo, Point Mugu Cmdr. John Iffland and representatives from Rep. Elton Gallegly’s office. “Whatever happens here is going to impact you, and it’s important that everyone understand that.�

In the wake of congressional mandates to trim the nation’s sizable defense budget, military bases have come under increasing scrutiny from Defense Department auditors as to their value in relation to the money spent to maintain them.

California, in particular, has been hard hit by past base closures, such as the naval station and shipyard shutdowns that stunned the Long Beach economy in 1991 and 1995.

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid,� said Schillo, who leads the county’s Regional Defense Partnership for the 21st Century, which hosted the event. “If you took all these people out, that would do a lot of damage to the Ventura County economy.�

Although the chance that the bases will actually be closed remains remote, there is little doubt that some change is inevitable, and the county wants to be prepared.

Schillo said that scenarios for the bases’ future include plans to expand the facilities by adding various naval units from other areas, thus expanding the bases’ number of missions and their importance to national defense.

A second plan calls for helping area defense contractors shift to production of civilian goods, thus setting the stage for area industries to stay in business should massive downsizing occur.

A third plan--deemed unlikely--calls for maintaining the bases and their relationships to the community as they currently stand.

“It would be wrong to think that everything can remain as it is,� Miller said. “While I don’t believe there will be any closures in this area, I do think there will be a reduction that will have an impact.�

What to do with the county’s military installations has been a topic of heated debate in recent years that has divided government and community leaders.

Supervisors Schillo and John Flynn have been the most vocal on the subject of military downsizing and have widely divergent opinions on how to keep the county’s bases open.

Though Schillo has favored converting the area’s defense-dependent industries to civilian production, Flynn has championed the idea of increasing the strategic importance of the bases.

A proposal to relocate four squadrons of E-2C Hawkeye radar planes from Miramar Air Station near San Diego to Point Mugu in July 1998 was hailed by Flynn as a giant step toward fortifying the base against a future round of closures.

The political impasse between the two supervisors was lightly chastised by Miller, who said that now was the time for the community to come together and champion the same vision.

“We’re here to support the communities, but we have to have their cooperation,� she said. “To mitigate these impacts, the community here is going to have to work together and work together soon.�