City *asks* military to close base, still causes controversy
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From USA Today, found via Yahoo! news portal. Headline is linked.
This city wants naval base closed
Fri Apr 15, 6:34 AM ET
By John Ritter, USA TODAY
Cities and states across the USA are hiring Washington lobbyists and mounting crusades to save their military bases as a deadline looms for the Pentagon's next budget ax.
But not Concord. This city of 124,000 northeast of San Francisco has taken the unusual step of asking the Defense Department to close a naval weapons station here. Its sprawling acres are far more valuable for development in the USA's priciest metropolitan housing market than the station's 100 civilian jobs, the city says.
But the proposal has drawn fire from environmental groups, such as the Greenbelt Alliance, and is roiling politics beyond Concord's borders. Transferring the base to private hands could upset a hard-won balance between suburban growth and open space in Contra Costa County, one of the fastest growing of the Bay Area's nine counties.
The weapons station is uncharacteristic of the nation's bases because the potential for civilian uses clearly outweighs its local economic value. While many communities are looking at options if their bases close, virtually all of them want to keep the military and its jobs. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must name those he wants closed by May 16.
"Concord's not getting much out of this base," says John Landis, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California-Berkeley. "There's no local constituency to keep it open. It's a big piece of land in the normal growth area."
Through four base-closing rounds since 1988 that retired 97 major facilities and hundreds of smaller ones across the USA at a savings of $7 billion a year, requests like Concord's are practically unheard of. Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood says there may have been one or two others, but it's not a statistic the military compiles.
There have been many successful conversions of military installations to public and private uses, such as the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver and England Air Force Base in Alexandria, La. But frantic appeals to keep the military in town are the norm.
California, the state with the USA's largest military presence, has been hardest hit: 29 closed bases, nearly a third of its total, and 93,000 jobs lost. In this year's round, California, like Florida, Kentucky and other states, is lobbying aggressively to protect what's left.
... more at linked article
Quite the unusual case. As the article notes, normally localities are stuck making every effort to keep the military in town because of potential job loses and economic impact. In this case, obviously the locals have determined that they can make much more judicious use of the space, though they also find themselves squaring off against environmentalists and slow growth fans who don't want to let the space get used in ways that could have detrimental environmental impact.
It should be interesting to see if the locals get what they are asking for in this case.
This city wants naval base closed
Fri Apr 15, 6:34 AM ET
By John Ritter, USA TODAY
Cities and states across the USA are hiring Washington lobbyists and mounting crusades to save their military bases as a deadline looms for the Pentagon's next budget ax.
But not Concord. This city of 124,000 northeast of San Francisco has taken the unusual step of asking the Defense Department to close a naval weapons station here. Its sprawling acres are far more valuable for development in the USA's priciest metropolitan housing market than the station's 100 civilian jobs, the city says.
But the proposal has drawn fire from environmental groups, such as the Greenbelt Alliance, and is roiling politics beyond Concord's borders. Transferring the base to private hands could upset a hard-won balance between suburban growth and open space in Contra Costa County, one of the fastest growing of the Bay Area's nine counties.
The weapons station is uncharacteristic of the nation's bases because the potential for civilian uses clearly outweighs its local economic value. While many communities are looking at options if their bases close, virtually all of them want to keep the military and its jobs. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must name those he wants closed by May 16.
"Concord's not getting much out of this base," says John Landis, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California-Berkeley. "There's no local constituency to keep it open. It's a big piece of land in the normal growth area."
Through four base-closing rounds since 1988 that retired 97 major facilities and hundreds of smaller ones across the USA at a savings of $7 billion a year, requests like Concord's are practically unheard of. Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood says there may have been one or two others, but it's not a statistic the military compiles.
There have been many successful conversions of military installations to public and private uses, such as the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver and England Air Force Base in Alexandria, La. But frantic appeals to keep the military in town are the norm.
California, the state with the USA's largest military presence, has been hardest hit: 29 closed bases, nearly a third of its total, and 93,000 jobs lost. In this year's round, California, like Florida, Kentucky and other states, is lobbying aggressively to protect what's left.
... more at linked article
Quite the unusual case. As the article notes, normally localities are stuck making every effort to keep the military in town because of potential job loses and economic impact. In this case, obviously the locals have determined that they can make much more judicious use of the space, though they also find themselves squaring off against environmentalists and slow growth fans who don't want to let the space get used in ways that could have detrimental environmental impact.
It should be interesting to see if the locals get what they are asking for in this case.