Base Closure Panel Hears Mixed Message : Military: California public sessions end with strong lobbying for San Diego Naval Training Center. But some urge closing of air station in Orange County.

Winding up three days of public hearings in California, the Defense Base Closing and Realignment Commission on Tuesday heard a unified pitch to keep the Naval Training Center here intact but only splintered support for the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County.

Afterward, commission Chairman James Courter said the panel was “leaning toward” adding more bases to the list slated for closure--a move that could help keep open some bases now targeted.

Supporters of Northern California bases scheduled for shutdown are lobbying to get the Everett, Wash., Naval Air Station added in hopes of saving the Alameda Naval Air Station. San Diego benefited when the commission added the Great Lakes Training Center north of Chicago to the Pentagon’s original list.

On Tuesday, nine San Diego witnesses, led by three House members from the city, laid out arguments for keeping the training command near the fleet to cut down on disruption to families, who often must uproot their lives to move elsewhere in the country after tours at sea have ended.

Using a strategy employed by San Diegans in the last round of base-closing hearings in 1991, the quality of life argument was pressed by a chief petty officer and his wife.

Cathy Kimble, wife of Master Chief Petty Officer Mike Kimble, told the commission of having to pull one daughter out of school 11 times. A younger daughter was lucky, Cathy Kimble said, “she only had to change seven times.”

Mike Kimble, in a crisp white uniform, said that enlisted personnel would be more willing to seek advanced training if it were available in the area--and commanders would be more willing to send them. Telling of the toll that frequent relocations took on family life, Kimble urged the commission “to make quality of life paramount in your decision.”

Besieged most often at these hearings by dry statistical testimony, the commission was clearly affected by the human touch conveyed by the Kimbles, prompting one to say, “It’s so refreshing to hear from real people.”

In more conventional testimony, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) delivered a rapid-fire summation of how the San Diego training center is superior to the rival Great Lakes Training Center.

At one point, Commissioner Beverly Byron, a former colleague in the House, advised the voluble Hunter to slow down. While emphasizing the benefits of “co-location” of ships and training schools, Hunter used slides to illustrate higher hospital and energy costs at Great Lakes.

San Diego Mayor Susan Golding urged that the commission consider closing the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which was spared two years ago. Golding said that private shipyard jobs in San Diego are threatened by the Long Beach facility.

In contrast, testimony over the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station included one faction that urged the commission to close it down. Former Rep. Robert Badham, representing Newport Beach as a consultant, argued that the land would be better used as a “badly needed” commercial airport.

El Toro has limited military value, Badham said, and “was no longer a good location for a military air base.”

Supporters of the base, including a number of council members from surrounding cities, disputed the supposed cost savings of moving the El Toro Marines to the Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego. Many criticized the Miramar facility as ill-equipped to handle the influx of personnel.

“It’s like going from a modern base to a fixer-upper,” said Irvine Councilman William Bloomer.

Doyle Selden, a spokesman for Leisure World, a Laguna Hills retirement community, also supported keeping the Marine base operating, largely for fear of noisy commercial aircraft flying over their compound. Leisure World residents got a taste of commercial aircraft noise during the Gulf War when 150 commercial jets flew support missions out of the El Toro base. But Badham said the commercial aircraft would actually be an improvement over the existing military jet noise. The El Toro presentation was orchestrated by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who did not make a formal statement on the fate of the base but acted more as a master of ceremonies.

Also on the base-closing list is March Air Force Base in Riverside County. All its active duty personnel are slated to be transferred to Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, leaving a skeletal reserve force at March.

But officials from the area took issue Tuesday with many of the calculations used by the Air Force to conclude that March had the least military value compared to similar bases and noted that $100 million had recently been spent on modernizing the base.

Supporters said an argument in its behalf was good weather. The abundant sunshine and rare fog were cited as distinct advantages over Travis, which has more troublesome weather for flying, witnesses said.