BILOXI - The commission charged with streamlining the U.S. military is expected to vote Friday on a proposal that would strip a Mississippi Air National Guard unit in Meridian of all its refueling aircraft.
The Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted on Thursday to keep intact Keesler Medical Center just one day after it opted to close Naval Station Pascagoula.
Also Thursday, the commission rejected a proposal to move a personnel center from Hancock County's John C. Stennis Space Center to Pennsylvania.
The panel is expected today to vote on the Mississippi Air National Guard's 186th Refueling Wing in Meridian, which would lose all its KC-135 tankers. Columbus Air Force Base and a Jackson Air Guard Station could gain jobs under the realignment proposals.
However, this is the first round of BRAC in which the commission will consider Guard facilities and the move has already triggered a legal showdown in some states.
The governors of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Tennessee have filed lawsuits against the Air National Guard base closures and realignments, and other states, are considering legal action.
They suggest that the federal government has overstepped its bounds, saying the commission cannot touch Guard bases without the consent of state governors.
Gov. Haley Barbour and other officials have not ruled out the possibility of taking legal action to protect Mississippi's Guard bases.
Pete Smith, a spokesman for Barbour, said: "We will wait to see what the BRAC Commission does and then we'll decide."
Lamar McDonald, appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour to head the Mississippi Military Communities Council, has said there are conflicting opinions regarding the legality of the Pentagon closing Guard bases.
"At this point we have not taken the step of bringing a lawsuit," he said. "We were trying to let the process work through before we did that."
McDonald has been in Washington for the BRAC hearings this week and praised Thursday's vote against downsizing Keesler's Medical Center.
The committee's 7-2 vote for an amendment that took Keesler off the realignment list, "means the medical center will stay as it is," said McDonald. "Of course, this is very good news for the state of Mississippi and the coast," McDonald said. "This is a very fine facility."
The Pentagon plan would have cut 181 military, 31 civilian and 190 contractor positions at Keesler.
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the Keesler and Stennis facility decisions would benefit the coast and "the many uniformed personnel and civilians who depend on these facilities for lifesaving health care and good jobs."
He said this is particularly true with Keesler, where a community-wide effort was able to convince the commission of "mathematical errors in its initial assessment of Keesler's hospital. To their credit, the BRAC commissioners recognized that mistake and acted swiftly to correct it with their votes."
Early Thursday, the commission discussed downsizing the medical center to a community hospital. Had that proposal been approved, Keesler's medical residency program would have been eliminated.
U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and others had criticized the Pentagon plan, saying it would have left soldiers and retirees scrambling for adequate health care and forced them to pay for copays and enrollment fees.
"The commission's vote today is a victory for the members of military and retiree community who rely on Keesler for their health care needs," Taylor said Thursday. "This is also a triumph for the dedicated Air Force medical personnel who will continue to receive an exceptional, hands-on education while assigned to the 81st Medical Group."
Anthony Principi of California, a BRAC commission member and former secretary of Veterans Affairs, said Keesler is an excellent facility for training medical personnel and that it would be a loss if Keesler were turned from a medical center to a community hospital with outpatient service.
On Wednesday, the commission voted to close Naval Station Pascagoula, which would cost the Gulf Coast town 963 jobs if President Bush and Congress sign off on the plan.
Jackson County officials say they hope the Coast Guard beefs up its presence in Pascagoula. And they plan to try to entice businesses to open up shop on the 437-acre island when it is abandoned by the Navy.
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