Critics of the Navy’s plans to build a new Regional Headquarters in the middle of downtown San Diego say it would be more appropriate to build the HQ close to the fleet at the 32nd Street Naval Station. The Navy argues there is no space for administrative buildings on the working waterfront. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.
Navy officials are responding to rumors that hundreds if not thousands of fleet maintenance workers may be laid off to save money, leaving vacant space at the naval base where Southwest Regional Headquarters could be moved.
Two high-level memos from the head of fleet maintenance in Norfolk Virginia reveal plans to privatize much of fleet maintenance for budgetary reasons. San Diego Navy spokesman Matt Brown says it’s true some intermediate maintenance is being moved from uniformed personnel to civilians or the private sector.
But he says that wont change the amount of maintenance work done at the 32 nd Street Naval station, in fact he says more ships are arriving that will need to be worked on.
Brown : 60 percent of naval forces are going to be stationed in the Pacific, and San Diego is the largest Pacific fleet center. We are going to get more ships, that’s the bottom line. We do not have more real estate to devote to office space.
Brown says, nationwide, the Navy’s goal is to cut 22,000 uniformed personnel within five years, to free up money to buy more high tech ships. He says some maintenance is already done by private contractors, and more of those jobs will be moving to the private sector in the future.
Alison St John, KPBS News.
