Posted on 11/11/2004 6:53:03 AM PST by bobsunshine
California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is trying to keep his state's military installations out of the Pentagon's sights during next year's round of base closures.
Schwarzenegger this week appointed an 18-member council to advise state and local communities as well as coordinate with the California congressional delegation on base closing and retention issues. And in case the recommended strategies don't work, the council will also recommend ways of mitigating the adverse effects of closing or downsizing bases.
The council is to be chaired by Leon E. Panetta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a former House member from California, and by Donna F. Tuttle, co-owner of Elmore Tuttle Sports Group, which owns minor league sports teams, and a former deputy secretary of commerce and undersecretary for travel and tourism in the Reagan and Bush I administrations.
The group is "a resource to be used" and an advisory council, said Vince Sollitto, a spokesman for the governor. It is not to be a lobbying organization.
Panetta, whose former congressional district lost Fort Ord Army Base in the last Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round, believes the state will eventually need outside lobbyists to help out. "We're going to have to have lobbyists who know how to work the BRAC Commission and the Defense Department," he said in an interview yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Close 'em all. Move the functions to States that aren't overrun with red diaper doper babies.
Arnie is wise to get moving on this now. The Pentagon would just as soon close their California bases and keep open the ones where the military is actually welcome. That would be in the South...the now-Republican South.
You make an interesting point. I was inclined to say "close 'em all", since California does not support the military. However, libs have used colleges in conservative states (Austin, TX, Raleigh, NC) to make inroads, and it may make sense to send MORE military installations into the liberal states, to constitute islands of pro-Americanism in a post-American state. California is too big for this to work, but perhaps Oregan, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Maine could be saved.
Yeah A(R)nold! Appoint one of the main men responsible for helping weaken our military!
Which ones did Clinton close that might have prevented that?
There are bases closing in other states as well. Not just California.
Same goes with Europe. Why benefit them with the economic spin-off that these bases create.
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