Montgomery Council members said Monday a main legislative goal this winter will be ensuring the county is not overlooked when the state doles out Base Realignment and Closure funds to areas affected by military restructuring.
For Montgomery, the biggest effects will be felt in Bethesda, where the National Naval Medical Center will expand to absorb the personnel and services lost by the impending closing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington.
Council President Marilyn Praisner and Council Member Roger Berliner stressed the importance of taking action to make sure Montgomery County BRAC funding does not fall by the wayside because the Montgomery project is much smaller in scope than BRAC issues in Aberdeen and Fort Meade.
“[They] could very well be so concentrated on Aberdeen and Fort Meade that the Montgomery County issues would be lost,” Praisner said. “That’s why some of us want to try to start the drumbeat now and keep working on it.”
Phil Alperson, coordinator of Montgomery County’s BRAC implementation plan, said the Fort Meade BRAC project is estimated to bring about 20,000 jobs onto the base and add thousands more jobs to the area. Aberdeen will also see “many thousands of jobs as a result of BRAC.”
“In both of these cases there are new jobs with people moving into the area and relocating,” Alperson said. “This is not just about jobs for those regions, but they are getting thousands of new families in their areas and the infrastructure impacts are not just on the base but also on the schools and surrounding community as well.”
In contrast, Bethesda Naval Medical Center will see between 1,500 and 4,000 new jobs and few relocations, since Walter Reed is already located in the Washington area. Also, Alperson said, the geographic area encompassed by the Montgomery project is “about a mile on [Route] 355,” compared to “a military base with thousands of acres.”
“We’re making a lot of noise,” Alperson said. “But we know the state’s coffers are not overflowing.”
