The Montgomery Advertiser August 17, 2005
Riley pleads Maxwell's case to BRAC
By Greg Wright
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Gov. Bob Riley told base closure commissioners Wednesday it is illogical to move a high-tech systems support unit from Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery to Massachusetts.
This is not the first time Alabama officials made this argument to Base Realignment and Closure Commission members.
However, Riley's meeting with BRAC Commission Chairman Anthony Principi and seven of the eight other commissioners comes less than a month before the group finishes reviewing the original Pentagon proposal unveiled in May.
The commission could reverse Pentagon plans to take the Operations and Sustainment Systems Group out of Maxwell. The commission's report is due by Sept. 8 and will be sent to President Bush for approval.
The Pentagon says OSSG -- and similar missions in Texas and Ohio -- would fit better at a technical research and development center at Hanscom Air Force Base, 16 miles northwest of downtown Boston. But Alabama officials said OSSG mainly does computer system support work, not research.
The move would cost Montgomery $750 million in economic impact and 3,254 jobs, including those Maxwell-Gunter expected to gain over the next five years.
"If you look at what the OSSG does, it makes all the sense in the world to leave it there," Riley told reporters before meeting with commissioners privately for about an hour. Riley said only about 300 OSSG jobs are research-related, and only those should be shifted to Hanscom.
Riley and Rep. Terry Everett, R-Rehobeth, believe commissioners could be seeing things the same way. For example, the commission asked the Pentagon to clarify the OSSG move soon after it released its base closure and realignment list, Everett said.
The Pentagon said its plan is to move the OSSG but not its "operational activities," Everett said Tuesday in a speech to the Montgomery Air Force Association in Alabama. Most Maxwell-Gunter OSSG jobs are operational, not research, he said.
"I feel good about it," Everett said Tuesday after his speech. "Having said I feel good about it, you have to realize it's an uphill climb."
About 80 percent of Pentagon base closure and realignment plans in the past ultimately have been approved. To get OSSG off the list, Alabama officials must persuade five of the nine commissioners to vote against moving the jobs to Massachusetts.
Riley said he also would urge the Pentagon not to move the 117th Air Refueling Wing in Birmingham to airfields in other parts of the country.
Riley's meeting with BRAC commissioners is not unusual. For months, governors have urged commissioners to save military facilities in their states, commission spokesman Robert McCreary said.
Although OSSG does not have many research workers, it still may make sense to move it to Massachusetts, said John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org defense analysis firm. That is because Massachusetts is a high-tech industry hotbed, Pike said.
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