BASE PANEL SOUGHT SIGN-UPS OPEN FOR COMMISSION.

Byline: Jim Skeen  Staff Writer

PALMDALE - The city is seeking applicants for a new commission to promote the local aerospace industry and to help ensure city controls over the use of the Air Force Plant 42 property on the chance it is targeted for closure.

The commission will serve as a forum for discussing ways to promote the aerospace industry and as an advisory panel to the Palmdale City Council on programs, policies and proposed legislation for recruiting and retaining aerospace companies.

The Palmdale Aviation and Aerospace Commission will be composed of five voting members who live in the city and two nonvoting members, who can reside outside Palmdale.

Applicants might be requested to make a five-minute presentation at the Palmdale City Council meeting Oct. 9. If appointed to the commission, each new commissioner must complete a state-mandated statement of economic interests form.

The commission members will not be paid, although they will be reimbursed for expenses for official business, said John Brooks, transportation analyst for the city.

Applications for appointment to the commission are available at the city's Public Works Department, 38250 Sierra Highway, or at the city's Web site at www.cityofpalmdale.org. For information, call John Brooks at 267-5300.

The commission's creation is being spurred by a law authored by state Sen. W.J. ``Pete'' Knight, R-Palmdale, that provides communities with military bases the right to establish base retention and reuse authorities. Under the law, communities must establish such entities by July 1 or the state's Defense Retention and Conversion Council can take steps on its own to establish such an entity.

The law requires the state to recognize the community's retention and reuse authority as the single planning authority for that particular military base.

Occupied by some 7,000 workers, Air Force Plant 42 is one of three Air Force-owned production facilities, the last remnant out of some 100 that existed at one time. The government owns the facilities, and they are operated by contractors like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin also owns its own facility adjoining Air Force Plant 42.