Gov. Mike Leavitt will meet with President Clinton's nominee for secretary of defense next week to pitch a plan that could keep Hill Air Force Base off closure lists.
Leavitt will talk to designee William Perry Tuesday about making 1995 base closure hearings a competitive rather than political process, said Mike Pavich, president of Hill/DDO '95, a group formed to fight possible closure of Hill and Defense Depot Ogden.The governor and Pavich, a retired major general who commanded the air logistics center at McClellan Air Force Base in California, have said that Hill will not close if Department of Defense officials base their decision on competition.
They say the base is the most efficient among the Air Force's five air logistics centers and work done there can't be efficiently moved to another defense depot.
Leavitt will also meet with governors of the four other states with air logistics centers to bolster their support of the idea. "We want to coalesce with them . . . to present a united front about the need for making this process one based in competition," Pavich said. He will accompany Leavitt to some of the meetings before next week's National Governors Conference.