As they awaited release of today's Department of Defense closure list, supporters of El Segundo's high-tech Los Angeles Air Force Base were hopeful that the facility would remain open.
"Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic," said Redondo Beach City Councilman John Parsons, co-chairman of the Los Angeles Air Force Base Regional Alliance.
Parsons and alliance members have been working hard to retain the air base, which employs 4,500 military and civilians and pumps an estimated $8 billion into the local economy.
Parsons said he has spent the last few weeks trying to glean information about the base's fate from "the rumor mill and the winks and nods you get from various sources."
In the four previous rounds of base closings, even generals would sometimes talk as long as their remarks were off the record, he said. The current round of closures and consolidations is much more hush-hush, Parsons said, and potential sources aren't talking.
Since the Pentagon started closing military bases in 1988, California has taken the biggest hit, losing 29 installations and 93,000 jobs.
Advocates have been fighting for California's remaining 30 major bases and dozens of smaller military installations with the help of the state Office of Military and Aerospace Support, the bipartisan California Council on Base Support and Retention, and community alliances, many comprising base retirees.
Parsons and other champions of the Los Angeles Air Force Base have put almost $1 million into their effort. But they have a lot to overcome, in part because the facility doesn't resemble any other Air Force base.
The home of the Space and Missile Systems Center, the facility looks like an office complex. There are no hangars and the closest planes are at Los Angeles International Airport.
"We don't have runways," said alliance co-chairman Joe Aro, executive director of the South Bay Economic Development Partnership. "We say our runways are vertical because we deal with space."
But for all its unconventional appearance, the base is essential to the country's defense, supporters say. Administering more than $60 billion in defense contracts annually, the facility develops and acquires space-based radar and communications systems essential for national security and military use, including satellites, launch vehicles and ground systems. It also manages intercontinental ballistic missiles.
