Lawmakers oppose Navy plan for base
Tauscher, Miller and Feinstein demand that Concord be involved in changes at naval weapons station

By Tanya Rose
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Federal lawmakers vowed Wednesday to fight the U.S. Navy's decision to consider selling the Concord Naval Weapons Station to a private developer, saying it would unfairly -- and perhaps illegally -- yank planning power away from the city of Concord.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, said she still is trying to assess how serious the Navy is about selling the 5,170-acre base to construction and environmental cleanup firm the Shaw Group Inc. in exchange for military construction. If need be, she said, she would support legislation intended to stop the Navy in its tracks.

"This kind of conveyance has never been done by the Navy in this context, and obviously we don't want the public scratched out of the planning process," she said Wednesday.

Tauscher, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are trying to determine whether the legal authority cited by the Navy is being used properly.

But those familiar with the process by which bases are closed and later turned over for public use say this type of conveyance -- and the legal authority used -- may be the wave of the future, as the military finds itself needing to unload its excess military bases quickly.

The statutory language invoked by the Navy to justify a deal is called the "exchange authority," and, so far, the Army has used the law at least twice, said Mike Wright, the Concord Reuse Project director, who has worked on other base closures.

But, he said, the pieces of land -- Fort Devens in Massachusetts and the Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant in Texas -- were much smaller. And in those cases, the developers never stopped the community from crafting its vision for the land as required by the Base Re-Alignment and Closure Act.

"The Navy has indicated to us that they intend to do away with the BRAC process," Wright said. "That has never happened before."

He said the city of Concord had been named the formal planning authority for the base by the Department of Defense and had received $2.6 million -- $1.9 million of that just this week -- to fund public outreach and planning.

But BRAC consultant Ken Mitchell said the process of unloading former military bases has become time-consuming and expensive as communities decide what they would like to see. Add to that the growing need for new military facilities -- air strips and dormitories, for example -- and a land trade for services makes sense, he said.

"The Navy doesn't want to wait for the community to battle out what they'd like to do with the base," he said. "Instead, they'll lean on the developer and say, 'OK, you get the contract and you have to agree with the community, where you address their concerns.'"

He said that more often than not cities do not have a good understanding of the process and just how much planning authority they have.

"And due to the cost, BRAC has to operate as a business," he said. "I think most local governments are having to do the same. I am sure if someone went to your local or county government and offered to provide a billion dollars in construction and maintenance support, they also would look very seriously at the offer."

But Concord Mayor Susan Bonilla said there was never a doubt the developers would become involved, and she doesn't believe the city was naive.

"We believed what we were told by the Navy, that everyone would follow this predetermined process," she said.

To her, the issue boils down to property value.

"If we allow a price to be set on the property now, every decision made will be about the developer seeing a return on their dollar," she said. "If we're allowed to plan it first, and then the developers come -- which we of course expect -- then they know what they're bidding on.

"We'd hate for it to be a situation where we as a community decide on a certain amount of open space and then the developer says, 'That wasn't taken into consideration when we bought the land. We'd rather build thousands of homes instead.'"

Bonilla said Wayne Arny, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, will meet with Concord officials Monday. Meanwhile, California politicians will lay out their plan of attack.

"This is really a shame," Tauscher said. "We're hoping that someone over (at the Navy) got a wild hair and now someone else is saying, 'Hey, we don't do it that way.'"

Reach Tanya Rose at 925-943-8345 or trose@cctimes.com.