BRAC 'em Up!

I've never been much of a fan of the Base Realignment and Closure commission because I've always felt like most of it is strictly politically motivated and has little to do with actual military expediency. But I think I have a base that should be realigned or just closed outright.

I have watched the crooked politics in the City of Virginia Beach all my life, so I can speak with some authority on the subject. I even spent 2-1/2 of the most miserable years of my life living in Virginia Beach. I can remember, as a kid, hearing how the Navy requested that VB City Council stop the encroachment of developers around Oceana Naval Air Station.

NAS Oceana was there first. VB didn't incorporate into a city until 1963 - so it's not like the location of the base was poor planning on the part of the Navy. But in the 40-plus years since the birth of VB, every city council has pandered to the real estate developers.

I can remember the "Green Line" - the imaginary boundary that council adopted as a line in the sand to halt development. I can also remember that every time you turned around, some poor, ignorant developer bought property that was south of the "Green Line" and council, having been financed by that developer, simply moved the "Green Line" a little further south.

Furthermore, the Navy cautioned VB about developing so close to such a busy air station and asked council to stop rezoning these parcels from agricultural and commercial to residential. But council, with the developers' hand firmly on the purse-strings, voted time and again to rezone to allow further residential encroachment and even had the gall to scold the Navy for suggesting that. City Council went so far as to tell the Navy that if they wanted the development to stop, the Navy should buy up the land or pay the developers not to build.

But wait!! There's more!

Oh, no - simply developing right up to the boundaries of the base was not nearly enough for the money-hungry politicians in VB. They even changed building codes to allow higher densities of homes in these rezoned residential areas!!! Of course, this kept both the tax collector and the developers happy because now there were squeezing even more money out of the ground.

So, let's recap where we stand so far - Navy establishes air station, VB sprouts up around it, Navy warns about safety of civilians, VB ignores warnings and does everything imaginable to do exactly what the Navy warned against. Okay. I think you're still with me.

The past few years, due to previous BRAC's, there have been more jet fighters to go around. Cherry Point MCAS wanted more of them and could have easily supported more and didn't have overpopulated residential areas bordering their base, but apparently, the city council in Havelock, NC had never run up on a political machine such as VB's. The VB City Council begged, lobbied, demanded, and got those additional fighters based at Oceana. Why you ask? Simple. Oceana is the largest employer in VB and additional fighters means additional tax revenues for VB.

But now they have the jets and have a new problem of their own making: increased jet noise. Yes, the people that bought homes adjacent to the base are complaining about jet noise. These people had to sign an affadavit when they purchased their homes that they understood that they were living in the shadows of a very busy air station and there would be jet noise. So, VB city council springs into action because those are tax-payers that are complaining about jet noise and as everyone knows, jet noise is much more harmful than a jet crashing into you. Yeah, I have a hard time feeling sorry someone that bought a house next to an air station and complains about jet noise -- kind of like having sympathy for an idiot that tap-dances on a land mine.

VB city council managed to convince someone in Washington that the jets at Oceana needed another base in coastal NC, far from VB, to practice their carrier landings (which is what they are supposed to do at Oceana). So VB wants the jets based at Oceana in VB but wants the jets to take their noisy-selves somewhere else when it comes time to train. Fortunately, a judge determined, despite every crooked political move made by VB, that the remote base could not be built on the proposed site in NC. (I'm sure we haven't heard the last of that one - VB probably maneuevering to find another patsy.)

I have the real solution (you knew this was coming, didn't you.) Close NAS Oceana. Put it on the BRAC and recommend that it be closed because of safety and NOISE POLLUTION issues. There are a multitude of naval air stations on the East Coast that are underutilized and offer less safety concerns and have space for growth of the base. The politicians and citizens of VB don't appreciate what they have and have never been willing to accomodate this major cash-cow.

As Marie-Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!" Or as I'd like to say, "Meyera, let them eat jet-wash!!!"