At long last, the 2005 base realignment and closure (BRAC) list has been released by the Pentagon and, for many communities, the news is far from good. For some, in fact, it is downright depressing.
Having their local military installation on the BRAC list is hardly welcome news for the 182 bases recommended for closure, a figure that does not include leased space throughout the country also recommended for elimination.
Those communities are now in a state of shock, and most will likely try to mount an aggressive campaign to convince the BRAC Commission to spare their local base, not unlike a patient diagnosed with a terminal illness who wants to get a second opinion before they start making funeral preparations.
I know what many of you are thinking — that once the base closure list is released, it’s final. No appeals, no politics. Nothing.
Well, not exactly. It does, however, severely limit it.
The base closings and realignments announced on May 13 were the fifth in series going back to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
In a nut shell, here’s how the BRAC process works. First, the Department of Defense prepares a list of military bases recommended for either mission realignment (which, in trms of its local economic impact, means that the base will lose a number of jobs, but will remain open) or outright closure of the base.
What that means is that, of the installations remaining open, some will still lose a lot of jobs, while others will gain a lot of jobs.
The BRAC list is submitted to a nine-member BRAC Commission, which will then spend the summer visiting those installations and hearing all sides of the argument before submitting their final BRAC list to the President on September 8.
Based upon past experience (this is our fifth time through this process, after all), the Commission will likely approve about 80 percent of the Pentagon’s recommendations.
The President must then either approve or reject the list in its entirety and, if he approves it, the list then goes to Congress for an all-or-nothing, up or down vote.
For the optimists among the communities with bases targeted for closure, history shows they have about a one in five shot at dodging this bullet, so to speak. I wish them well, and I mean that sincerely.
However, those communities with military installations that are ultimately closed in this round of the BRAC process should not lose sight of the fact that through adversity comes opportunity.
A local economic developer who shall remain nameless was once imortalized in the book, “The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said,” (Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, in the category “On Spins: Municipal”) when, as head of the Hattiesburg, Miss., economic development effort, he once said in response to an announced major layoff by a local company: “A layoff is not good news, but it does provide other businesses and industries wanting to expand or move here an exceptional work force to choose from.”
I think he had it exactly right.
Sure, it’s important to go through the grieving process, and losing a military base with its employment and economic impact certainly qualifies. And, if there’s anything a community can do to save their base, by all means they should try.
Still, for those 80 percent or so that do end up closing, the sooner they get about the business of transferring the bases to local civilian control, the sooner they’ll be able to interject that real estate into the local economy.
To the communities that do eventually have a base or bases closed in this round of BRAC, there are plenty of organizations that can help a community through the transition. Clearly, the Defense Department has programs designed specifically to address your needs, but don’t forget that the current round of BRAC is the fifth in the last 15 years.
That means that there are plenty of other communities that have already gone through what you’re facing right now. See how they handled their own base closure. Find out what worked and what didn’t. Ask them what they’d do differently if they had it to do all over again. Learn from their successes, as well as from their failures.
A good place to start is with the National Association of Installation Developers (NAID), an organization of former military bases formed more than 30 years ago during the Vietnam War drawdown. These folks have already “been there, done that,” when it comes to base closures.
Trust me, there have been a lot of successes — as well as a lot of failures — when it comes to taking a former military installation and bringing it into commercial use. It’s certainly not an easy task, but neither is it an impossible one.
In fact, NAID is having its annual conference in Denver June 4-7. It might be worthwhile to have someone from your community attend, even if you intend to fight to save your local base from the final list submitted to the President and the Congress. No sense in not hedging your bets, after all.
For more information on NAID, visit their Web site at www.naid.org.
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