New Round of BRAC

[Pete]

New Round of BRAC - maybe.

New round of BRAC recommendations looming

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2012...ac=fo.military

"Talk of military base realignment and closure - BRAC - is in the air again.

The talker is none other than the secretary of defense himself, Leon Panetta.

Panetta brought up the subject Aug. 6 in his hometown of Monterey, Calif., at a meeting of the Association of Defense Communities.

"We're closing bases abroad and that's why we put forward the proposal for developing the BRAC process in our budget," Panetta told the group..............."

With the Military downsizing it would seem to make sense.

But the one big problem is land. Developers love the closing of bases in congested places so they can pick up the land and develop it - and the local government make a profit on taxes.

Get rid of too much land and it becomes hard to expand again. Too many troops on any given base makes it a real fight for resources.

[2018commo]

This as been in process for almost a year, referred to locally as Baby BRAC. Consolidation of similar mission (RTDE) organizations. A point I try to drive home with my colleges is that we must preserve the land we have, as we will never get more.

[Pete]

Few know a new State Park (Carvers Creek State Park) was created just north of Ft Bragg and between it and the Pine Valley Subdivision area.

The plan is to link up the Long Valley Farm Area in Spring Lake to Carver's Creek by the Cape Fear River area with Hiking Paths.

Overall I think that is a good idea because it buffers that area from development. Although the only military activity I've seen in the McArthur Road area appeared to be Land Nav type stuff.

See page 2 of the plan to see how it snugs up to Ft Bragg.

http://www.ncparks.gov/About/plans/master/cacr/ch1.pdf

[Badger52]

BRAC: A cyclic-appearing monster that is a hungry beast to feed. A leviathan that recreates empires of annuitant re-hires, contractors, updates of economic impact statements, and spreadsheets with triple-character column headers which strike fear into the heart of a local community and freeze economic development. Resources consumed to feed this data-call-hungry beast yield, in many places, a boatload of operational stuff placed on the backburner.

The Army, on a base of nothing but WW-II style wood, will "sell back" to Congress triple value of its closed data-center space because it's called (and valued) something different by the real property people than standard admin space ($65/sq ft vs. $20-something). It might stave an Army cut for a few days or committee meetings & keep the AF from buying one more plane's worth of spare parts. BRAC is that type of exercise on steroids.

It is a bullshit pony & dog show. Plus ca change...
But I'm not cynical.