Community concerned over new base closures
07:23 AM MST on Friday, November 7, 2003

Anna Rau
Idaho's NewsChannel 7

Mountain Home Mayor Dave Jett says there are no safe bases in this next round of closures, a scary thought for a community that depends so much on a military base.

"It would be a blow not only to mountain home, it would be a blow to the entire state," Mayor Jett said.

Mayor Jett made a trip to air combat command headquarters in Langley Virginia about a week ago. He says it's reinforced his concerns about Mountain Home Air Force Base.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to shut down 25% of the US's military bases across the board.

At the Mountain Home Air Base the airmen, their families and employees total more than 10-thousand and many say losing the base would mean losing the town of Mountain Home too.

"I think without the base, the town would probably fold," Mountain Home resident Diane Purdy said.

"75% of our employees are military related, so it would be a big shell-shock, it would be a ghost town," Business owner Sharon Grinde-Ash said.

"Oh man, I couldn't even begin to tell you what it means, it is our community," Mayor Jett said.

It’s a community that Mayor Dave Jett believes is in jeopardy with the next round of base closures.

"My big concerns are, we are a small state, with a small base, and so that automatically puts us into a category where we are vulnerable," Mayor Jett said.

"You never know what's going to happen," Mike Tracy with Senator Craig’s office said.

Tracy says even though Mountain Home has one of the best and biggest training ranges, and the fighter pilots there are repeatedly ranked the highest in the country, that may not be enough to spare it from closure.

"The concerns by the folks, the elected officials in Mountain Home and the people in Mountain Home are legitimate," Tracy said.

Mayor Jett is so concerned he's already asking people to join forces and start writing letters, and fight even the possibility that Mountain Home Air Force Base could disappear.

"The Air Force is going to need a place to fly airplanes and Idaho is as good it gets," Jett said.

"Small towns like this, we have to stick together, the minute we stop fighting for it, we're going to lose it," Purdy said.

President Bush is expected to nominate a committee in early 2004 that will start looking at bases for closure across the US. The committee will have a list by the end of 2004, and Congress is expected to vote on it in 2005.