Members of the state's Defense Conversion Team were offered encouragement about the fate of the Tooele Army Depot on Monday from Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah.
Hansen told the team, formed by the governor's office to help the state make the transition from a defense-based economy, that a good case can be made for keeping Tooele's North Area off the national base closings list.The congressman said he would meet later Monday with a former Tooele commander to seek assistance in preparing for meetings with the federal commission that has the final say on which bases make the list.
The head of the independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission, Jim Courter, a former congressman from New Jersey, is scheduled to tour Tooele on April 22.
Tooele stands to lose more than 2,000 jobs, the bulk of the military and civilian jobs in Utah slated for layoffs under a proposed list of base closures released last month by the Pentagon.
The federal government hopes to save about $3.1 billion annually beginning in the year 2000 by closing or scaling back more than 250 bases and other major military facilities.
Hansen said he'll be ready to show how the brand-new, state-of-the-art $110 million consolidated maintenance facility can save the military money if all branches of the military use it.
Right now, the assembly-line vehicle repair facility that's the size of nine football fields is running at only about 40 percent of capacity because inter-service agree-ments have not been fully implemented.
Hansen told the team not only should Tooele be providing maintenance for the Navy, Marines and Air Force but also civilian companies such as Delta Airlines.
Branches of the armed services not using the Tooele facility will have to answer to Hansen, who is the ranking Republican on a House Armed Services subcommittee on facilities.
"When it really gets down to push and shove, we'll say, `If you want your money, this is going to happen,' " Hansen said, adding that it's surprising how quickly the military complies with Congress when funding is at stake.
The Defense Conversion Team also heard a report from Brig. Gen. Lester L. Lyles, commander of the Ogden Logistics Center and senior commander at Hill Air Force Base.
Lyles said Hill, which was not on the base closure list, is working hard to make sure it doesn't end up on another closure list that may be prepared for the 1995 budget year.
Lyle also said the base has reduced the number of layoffs at the logistics center from more than 3,000 to about 600 through contracting with customers for reimbursement and offering retirement incentives.
Some, not all, of those 600 jobs could be saved in the coming months if the logistics center receives the contracts the center is competing for, Lyles said.
Within a week, he said, the base expects to hear whether it has been awarded a contract for landing gear work now being performed by a Canadian firm. It would provide fewer than 100 jobs.