Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
CNJ Photo: Eric Kluth
Airman 1st Class Chris Vicars looks inside a vehicle during a random vehicle inspection Tuesday at Cannon Air Force Base.
David Stevens: Freedom Newspapers
Randy Harris said he has every reason to believe Base Closure and Realignment commissioners will spare Cannon Air Force Base when they hold hearings this week in Washington.
“When the commissioners were here (at Cannon in June), they saw unencroached air space, an unencroached (bombing) range, the ability to expand,” said Harris, one of eastern New Mexico’s leaders in the fight to keep Cannon.
“They saw not near enough savings to justify the costs of what closing Cannon would do to this community. ... These are good people. Intelligent people. That’s what makes me comfortable.”
But Harris’ optimism is tempered with caution.
“You are always concerned with the unknown. That’s just a natural,” he said.
“It’s kinda like a farmer. He’s got a beautiful crop, it’s all going just right, but it’s not over until the crop’s in the bin. It’s not over for Cannon until we get five or more votes. ... I just can’t imagine there not being five votes.”
Five of the nine BRAC commissioners must agree before a military base can be removed from the Pentagon’s recommended closure list.
Cannon and 32 other major installations were targeted for closure on May 13.
Harris and Chad Lydick, both members of the Committee of Fifty, a Cannon support group, plan to be at the hearings on Thursday and/or Friday when the Air Force will be discussed.
Harris said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson also plans to attend the hearings along with Hanson Scott, director of New Mexico’s office for military base planning and support.
But most local Cannon supporters will be close to home when the base’s fate is determined.
Clovis Mayor David Lansford said he plans to work a normal schedule at his pharmacy, though he is prepared for interruptions.
“My dad, he’s retired and he’ll be at home watching on television. I’m sure he’ll call me and I’ll find out instantaneously,” Lansford said.
Lansford said he feels “pretty confident” about Cannon’s future.
“The things we’ve pointed out with regard to Cannon’s assets and potential ... is definitely of enough significance to warrant voting it off the list,” he said.
“I think Cannon Air Force Base, based on my assessment, will be suitable for many, many future missions, whatever those missions may be.”
Marshall Stinnett, president of Eastern New Mexico University’s board of regents and a member of the state’s Military Base Planning Commission also expressed confidence that Cannon will survive.
“I feel good about it. I think the Air Force’s justification for closing Cannon was so flawed I don’t think they have much ground to stand on,” he said.
“When you rate Kirtland (Air Force Base in Albuquerque) as a better fighter base than Cannon, and they’re using a civilian runway, then (the data is flawed.)”
Meanwhile at Cannon, it’s business as usual.
“We’ll have the TV on here in public affairs to see how things unfold,” said Capt. Andre Kok, chief of Cannon’s public affairs office.
“But if you come out to the base, May 15 wasn’t any different than May 12. And Aug. 29 is not going to be any different than on Aug. 23. We’re doing our normal operations, which is flying F-16s.”
TV watch
• The independent base-closure commission will begin hearings at 6 a.m. (MDT) today. They’ll be televised on C-SPAN 2 (Channel 11 in Clovis) until they’re completed on Friday or Saturday. BRAC officials have said sessions may run past 10 p.m. daily.
City of Clovis officials said they expect a Cannon decision on Friday.
A public viewing of the hearings is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. Friday at the Clovis-Carver Public Library’s north annex.
Local officials will conduct a press conference after Cannon’s fate is learned. That press conference will be aired on Channel 6 in Clovis.
The BRAC Commission agenda has 198 items for consideration with Cannon 100th on the list. Cannon is 32nd on the 55-item list of Air Force issues.
On the Web
• You can also watch the BRAC hearings live on C-SPAN’s Web site. A link to the C-Span site is found on the Clovis News Journal Web site:
• The BRAC Web site is at:
News of note
• Several BRAC commissioners are skeptical of the Pentagon’s cost-saving estimates for closing 33 major military installations, including Cannon. Defense Department officials say this round of proposed base closures would save about $49 billion over 20 years. BRAC Commission Chairman Anthony Principi said in an interview with C-SPAN aired on Tuesday night that Government Accountability Office analysis shows the savings to be about half of that $49 billion.
• Also in recent interviews, Principi has mentioned Cannon Air Force Base specifically in reporting that commissioners will weigh heavily the economic impact a base closure would have on a community. The Clovis area stands to lose about one third of its jobs if Cannon is closed, officials have estimated — the largest hit of any community on the BRAC list.
Speculation
• Cannon supporters have suggested in recent months that the base would be an ideal home for several missions, including one with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is still in its development stage. Principi wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asking if Cannon had been considered as a site for A-10 air-to-ground combat jets should Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, Va., be closed.
But Randy Harris of Cannon support group Committee of Fifty said only BRAC commissioners know which scenarios, if any, are possible.
“There are too many factors out there,” Harris said. “People have asked me, ‘If Oceana closes, is that good for Cannon?’ Could be. They’ve asked ‘If Oceana doesn’t close, is that bad for Cannon?’ Could be. Truth is, there are just too many variables out there.”
What next
BRAC commissioners are expected to make their final recommendations this week, but they have until Sept. 8 to present them to President Bush.
By Sept. 23, the president must either forward the report to Congress or return it to the Commission for further evaluation.
If the report is returned, the BRAC Commission has until Oct. 20 to resubmit its report to the president. If the report is returned to the Commission and then re-submitted to the president, the president must transmit his approval and certification of the resubmitted report to Congress by Nov. 7.
Congress has 45 days from the day it receives the report from the president to enact a joint resolution to reject the report in full, or the report becomes law.
Should the president fail to approve or transmit either the initial or revised Commission recommendations by the above dates, the BRAC process will be terminated.
The Commission will be terminated by law on April 15.
