State, county and local officials convened a town hall meeting Monday morning in Aberdeen to review the impact of thousands of jobs coming to Harford County through Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Nearly 250 people attended the meeting at the Higher Education and Technology Center to hear the most recent reports on the military base realignment and closure process consolidating military functions from bases in New Jersey and Northern Virginia at Aberdeen.
The latest estimates show a net gain of 8,200 new federal jobs coming to Aberdeen, said retired Brig. Gen. J.M. Hayes, the director of military and federal affairs for the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
The conservative estimate for related contractor and support jobs is about 25,000, he said.
“We are receiving just about every technology function essential to the Army, and to the Army of the future,” said DBED Secretary Aris Melissaratos.
Melissaratos emphasized that transportation improvements would need to be a state and county priority, especially improvingMaryland Routes 40, 22 and 24.
Redevelopment of old or dilapidated areas along the Route 40 corridor was the best opportunity, he said.
“I had some concerns with public safety,” Melissaratos said. “We can?t have people at [Fort] Monmouth [N.J.] thinking they?re moving into gang territory.”
Hayes said the changes must be implemented by 2011, but that most of the job movement won?t begin until 2009.
However, the length of the planning process left at least one person in attendance wondering if the county would be ready by then.
“If you look at the timeline ? what it takes to build a school, what it takes to build a road ? then I wonder,” said Mike Smith, a Forest Hill resident who retired from a job at Aberdeen.
The next step will be to get federal money from the Department of Labor and do a comprehensive study of the county?s higher education and infrastructure, as well as security clearances, Hayes said.
