GovernmentExecutive.com

The Base Closure and Realignment Commission will wrap up its site visits and hearings on individual bases next week, ending three months of cross-country travel to dozens of installations recommended for closure.

Over the next several weeks, commissioners and staff will review documents and meeting minutes before marking up their own recommendations.

"While we continue to receive written data throughout the remainder of the process, it is critical that our review and analysis team is allowed the necessary time to thoroughly read, evaluate and incorporate the data that has, to date, been provided," Anthony Principi, the panel's chairman, said in a statement.

Commissioners are in North Carolina and Ohio Tuesday and will travel to Indiana Wednesday.

On Thursday, the commission will hold a public hearing on Capitol Hill on the possible closure of Oceana Naval Air Station, one of eight recommendations the commission last month added to the list for consideration.

Next week, commissioners will spend most of their time visiting other installations they voted to add to the list. They also will meet with Air Force and Air National Guard leaders Aug. 11 on Capitol Hill to resolve lingering issues surrounding the Pentagon's recommendation to take all aircraft from several Air National Guard bases.

The commission's recommendations are due to the White House by Sept. 8.

COMMENTS

• How can they make a decision when they have not even given half of the bases (big or small) a chance to talk to them. How can they decide when they have not talked to anyone of the workers where I work at MOBCOM KCMO. They were supposed to come here but they just blew us off. I can't believe Congress and the Senators are letting this happen. America is going broke, our men/women are getting killed for Bush's war. China wants to take us over. North Korea and Iran want to nuke us. Bush and Rummy are closing all our bases. While we Americans sit home and sweat where our next pay check is coming from, Bush is on vacation counting his money from his profits. WAKE UP PEOPLE!! Can anyone say the word impeach!!! worker bee kc GovExec.com reader Posted August 4, 2005 8:21 AM
• I sure hope this BRAC uses some common sense and follows-up on their great edicts...the last one was next to useless! In 95, the Army led the BRASC around by the nose and the Air Force suffered. Case in point; there was a Communications workload at Sacramento, that should have come to Hill AFB. But BRAC would not listen...BRAC and their Sacramento staffers (and that's giving them too much credit) said everything in a certain Building at Sacramento HAD to go to Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD). It came to pass; the CORE workload went to TYAD. Then the incompetence started. While BRAC and Hill AFB were asleep, TYAD negotiated a DMISA with Hill AFB on this workload...TYAD "cherry-picked" 25 items out of a CORE of around 68, work that would make them money, and ignored the rest...just left them for Hill AFB to figure out how to repair; while TYAD had the Program's entire Hardware Maintenance Suite! What was Hill to do? They could have "grown-a-pair" and demanded that TYAD repair the entire workload that TYAD had begged BRAC to give them. TYAD's excuse was that they did not know how...my, my, WHY NOT spend a buck and get the SAME training Sacramento had gotten from the original manufacturer? Sacramento had NO PROBLEM repairing 100% of that CORE workload. Instead Hill is "rolling-over"; and getting an expensive contract (all that money BRAC has saved) to repair what TYAD cannot or will not repair. Did BRAC close the wrong ALC??? I hope this BRAC does not "suck" as bad as the last one; or we will all be broke with "the money BRAC 95 saved us" with their failure to act and follow-up. I guess we never tire of shooting ourselves in the foot; because it feels so good when we stop. Really disgusted victim of BRAC, GovExec.com reader Posted August 3, 2005 8:19 PM
• Did you ever wonder what it takes to keep a DOD facility from being closed by the BRAC? Well, I have a good example. Consider Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC) in Ohio. With the miracle of modern technology you can see for yourself. Just go to Google.com and find the satellite image of the facility at: 3990 East Broad Street Columbus, Ohio 43218-3990 If you zoom in, the first thing you will notice are new office towers. Millions of dollars worth of office towers that were built since the first BRAC. Those came about because the local Congressional representatives and Defense Logistics Agency laid out a plan to close another facility in Dayton that didn't need millions of dollars in construction. They were closed by the BRAC committee and moved to Columbus so that the construction could be justified. But, you may not see the other important feature at DSCC. Look all of the way to the West side of the facility. That's not somebody's huge yard. That's a golf course. The facility has its own golf course right in the middle of Whitehall, a suburb of Columbus. How can anybody think of closing an old, W.W.I Depot with rotting buildings when it has a wonderful golf course for the federal employees? The BRAC committee representatives just toured the facility again to see if they want to keep DFAS open. What do you suppose will happen? Robert M. Posted August 3, 2005 9:11 AM