Part I of II

IT TAKES GUTS…

I attended Elementary school at Luke AFB in western Maricopa County, AZ.  My soccer coaches were aircraft mechanics & technicians.  My Cub Scout Leader was an F-15 pilot.  My youth was spent on bases with family and friends developing an intimate understanding of military life.  By the time I left home at 18, I had obtained a deep and personal appreciation for this facet of our freedom.  I moved away after high school, lived overseas, and spent considerable time as a civilian at RAF Mildenhall, RAF Lakenheath, RAF Bentwaters, and RAF Sculthorpe in the UK.  After graduate school and two Master’s Degrees in Urban Planning and Public Administration I became a City Manager, eventually ending up back in West Phoenix.

To my surprise and disappointment, 15 years had led to little progress in the preservation of Luke AFB.  Municipalities in Maricopa continued to pursue self-preservation through an ‘annex & build’ model in order to maintain a share of State-shared tax revenues.  The “Annex or Die” mentality adopted by many municipal officials, it was clear that this mentality had done little to protect Arizona’s greatest asset.  While I didn’t know its value to Arizona was $5.6 billion, knew the military complex in Arizona was on the brink (Maguire Study, May 2002).   As a 7th generation native-born Arizonan, great-great nephew to the first woman elected to the State Legislature and co-designer of the Arizona flag, I felt a responsibility to do my part. 

I made a landmark career decision - one that some would call “the most gutsy decision any public official had made in years“.   The single decision to take a highly active and visible role in shaping public policy ultimately, cost me my job as a Chief Executive. 

BASE CLOSURE: Economic Impacts

Preservation of a military installation in the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process requires a yeoman’s effort.  To keep Luke Air Force Base, Davis Monthan Air Force Base, and the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station out of sight to the BRAC Commission, protecting the the Barry M Goldwater training Range (BMGR) and the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field (GBAFAF) were critical.  The undertaking would require building upon the work of predecessors and enlisting key players in the effort. Those who were eventually engaged include:

• Senator John McCain
• Governor Janet Napolitano (now Director of the US Dep’t of Homeland Security)
• Congressmen Trent Franks, Dennis Hastert (former Speaker of the House), and Raul Grijalva
• Mark Winkleman, State Lands Commissioner
• 1/2 dozen State Representatives
• More than 12 Mayors, dozens of elected officials, hundreds of state and local government decision-makers, and
• The Arizona Republic

Public perception of anyone traveling from Phoenix or Tucson to Yuma or Mexico remembers the Town of Gila Bend.  Gila Bend is a hot-as-hell town of “2,000 residents and 5 old crabs” where tumbleweeds still thrive, and where fan belts and radiators go to die.  That’s the extent what most people ever knew about Gila Bend.  Gila Bend is actually home to the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field (GBAFAF) and the Barry M. Goldwater Range.  The GBAFAF is an airfield and installation on 1,885 acre of land in southwest Maricopa County, Arizona approximately 3 miles south of town.  The BMGR is one of the largest military training ranges in the world.  Together, the airfield and 2.7 million acre Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR) provides year-round live ammunition training for several branches of the military throughout the Southwest US including the following:

• F-16, F-14, F-18, AV-8B (Harriers), A-10, AH-64 (Apache), AH-1F, OH-58, CH-47, and UH-60 helicopters.
• Army National Guard Aviation Training,
• US Government Law Enforcement Agencies, and
• Allied military forces.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: The 5 C’s of Military Preservation

As a native-born Arizonan, I learned the State’s 5 C’s before I could ride a bicycle: Cattle, Copper, Cotton, Citrus and Climate.  While generally used to describe Arizona’s five principal industries, seemingly absent was the importance of Arizona’s military-complex which provided thousands of jobs tied directly and indirectly statewide.  In 2001, a study was commissioned by several Arizona cities to document the economic importance of Arizona’s military operations.  This study is commonly referred to as the Maguire Study, and a summary of this report can be viewed on our website.

The 5 C’s of Military Preservation:

1. Cost / Benefit Analysis
2. Comprehensive Planning
3. Cultivation of Intergovernmental Relations
4. Cooperation / Intergovernmental Commitment
5. Consignment

1. COSTS vs. BENEFITS

If you dont know or understand the state and local economic impacts of your military facilities, this is where you need to start.  Until the Maguire Study, no emperical analysis had been completed on such a comprehensive and consistent basis.  The study inventoried Arizona’s 9 major military installations and successfully articulated the economic impacts of the Military industry in Arizona.  The conslusions were stagggering:

• 45.6 billion in statewide economic output or more than 4% of the State’s economy.
• Arizona’s #1 employer >83,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs statewide resulting from the military operations, more than Honeywell, Wal-Mart and Motorola combined and 20,000 more than the health care industry.
• More than $1.6 billion in annual payroll directly added to the Arizona economy.
• More than $2.4 billion in direct economic outout into the state’s economy.
• More than $233 million in taxes to state and local government (the equivelant of a 72-cent statewide sales tax or $70 - $120 per household).
• More than 40,000 military retirees lives within 50 miles of an military facility tied to their retirement benefits.

2. COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING (coming soon in Part II)