[CPEO-MEF] The down side of the Mare Island closure

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Small Communities Struggle After Military Bases Close

Margolis Report
Voice of America
April 7, 2005  


The U.S. military has 425 bases around the country, and by mid-May, will
have to come up with a list of which ones to shut down. It's part of the
Pentagon's plan to save perhaps tens of billions of dollars by
eliminating and consolidating underutilized bases. But, states and
cities are lobbying furiously to keep their facilities off that list.
Previous rounds of base closures have been devastating to some small
communities, like Vallejo, California, which was once home to Mare
Island, the oldest Naval shipyard on the west coast. 

After it opened in 1854, the Navy built everything from wooden ships to
nuclear-powered submarines here. At its height during World War II, it
employed some 40,000 people. But by the time the base closed in 1996,
only about 20% of those jobs were left. And today, nearly a decade
later, only about 1,800 people work on the island, and Vallejo is still
struggling to recover. 

The community's downtown is a very different place now than it was when
the base was still operating. It actually began losing businesses to
suburban malls in the 1970s, but Mare Island's closure was the final
blow. Today, there are boarded up stores on every block, and not much
street traffic and vitality during what should be the busy noontime
lunch hour. 

..

For the entire article, see
http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-04-07-voa28.cfm

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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