L.A. BASE ESCAPES ROUND OF CLOSURES.

Byline: Lisa Friedman and Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - Los Angeles Air Force Base and other major military installations in California survived the Pentagon's closure list Friday, but Ventura County took the state's biggest hit with the potential loss of 1,500 military and civilian jobs.

The Pentagon's Base Realignment and Closure plan recommends the cut in jobs at Naval Base Ventura County, but officials at Los Angeles and Edwards Air Force bases as well as Fort Irwin National Training Center in the Mojave Desert breathed sighs of relief.

The Pentagon recommended leaving those facilities untouched or even adding new military operations.

``Bottom line, it's not too bad,'' Sen. Dianne Feinstein said of the Pentagon recommendations' potential impact on California.

Other job losses in California would occur in San Diego and Riverside counties, where each could lose about 1,000 positions. San Bernardino County could lose more than 500 jobs, mostly in Barstow.

Overall, California stands to lose 2,018 military and civilian jobs and could face the closure of 11 installations. State leaders noted that the loss is a fraction of what California suffered in four earlier rounds of base closings.

California has lost more than 93,000 jobs and 29 bases since the first round of closures in 1988. More than 15,000 jobs drained out of California just in the latest one, in 1995.

``To some extent, California paid at the office. The bases that we have now really do play a very important role in terms of our national security. That's frankly what saved us,'' said Leon Panetta, co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commission that investigated how to support the state's bases.

The federal Base Realignment and Closure commission will hold hearings on the Pentagon recommendations until Sept. 8, when it will forward its own list to President George W. Bush.

Panetta noted that many of the Pentagon's recommended realignments in California actually moved jobs from one part of the state to another - including the 2,300 Ventura County jobs that could transfer to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Kern County desert or the 850 Corona jobs that could come to Ventura County.

California installations that could gain positions include Edwards Air Force Base (51 jobs); the Marine Corps Reserve Center in Pasadena (25 jobs); and Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County (145 jobs).

Tom Nielsen, spokesman for the Ventura County BRAC task force, said the news could have been worse.

``It's not as grim as potentially it could have been,'' he said. ``It could have been a 'lock the doors and give us the keys as you walk out.'''

But he also worried that the recommendations to move weapons and electronic warfare research and test work to Kern County could ``realign us into obscurity.''

Both Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, and Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn noted that the base employs more than 18,000 people and said the potential losses must be put into perspective.

``The base remains open, and if you count 1,500 jobs out of 18,000, I think we came out of the whole thing very well. But I'd have to say that 1,500 jobs lost is 1,500 people,'' Flynn said.

Gallegly said Channel Islands Air National Guard Station will add 19 jobs by replacing E model C-130 cargo planes with more modern J models.

Overall, assuming no economic recovery, the Pentagon estimates the total loss of Ventura County jobs, both directly from the military transfers and indirectly from job losses at other affected businesses, would be more than 6,000 over the next five years.

That is about 1.5 percent of the area's present total employment.

Mark Schniepp of the Goleta-based California Economic Forecast said the job losses, if they occur, will be virtually unnoticeable in a metropolitan area. They are no greater, he said, than what has occurred for a number of years through low-key defense cuts.

``It really is irrelevant to the economies here,'' Schniepp said.

Southern California officials said they were particularly grateful that Los Angeles Air Force Base, south of Los Angeles International Airport, was spared. Lewis said he personally spoke with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney about the base's importance, conversations that other lawmakers said directly helped save the base.

``This was the biggest battle in the war and I'm very pleased that we were successful,'' said Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo.

Los Angeles Air Force Base supporters spent more than $1 million on consultants to lobby for the base's survival.

Home to the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB employs 4,439 military and civilian workers and has authority over about $60 billion worth of defense contracts. The base was long feared to be on the Pentagon's hit list, with its jobs likely to move to Colorado or New Mexico.

Others warned the fight isn't yet over.

``This is no time to let our guard down,'' Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, D-Carson, said in a statement. ``Those bases now on the closure list will be lobbying to be spared. Should that occur, L.A. Air Force Base may again be targeted. We must not let that happen,'' she said.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 boxes

Box:

(1) CALIFORNIA MILITARY BASE RECOMMENDATIONS

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Defense

(2) ACROSS THE U.S.