You missed the point at what was happening at the time melvin, thats
why you are amazed. It's not that Dellums and Feinstein wanted the
military out of the Bay Area, they wanted them there, but at what
political cost? The point was that; Dellums and Feinstein did nothing
but **** off their counterparts on the hill for years, about ALL
issues!!! Therefore, when it came time for BRAC, the commission said,
"**** on you", here's what you get!!! I believe you are totally wrong
about the cost of living as the reason for getting the boot in the Bay
Area, maybe you don't understand military pay. I lived there for 8
years, right in Mounain View, and had hundreds of friends around the
whole Bay,(Moffett, Alameda, T.I., Concord, etc.). Housing was the
only thing that was more expensive for the member, than other areas,
but then we had VHA at the time to compensate, you ended up paying
anywhere from 0- 15% out of pocket expenses, depending on what
neighborhood or size of house you rented. Now, buying a house was
kinda out of the question, unless you were an 'O' or senior enlisted,
(which is the way it should be anyway). It is the same thing now,
anywhere you live, the only cost of living thing that affects you is
housing, and if you live on base, or live within your means it doesn't
even affect you. If we use your reasoning, then we would have to close
all the bases in high cost areas, (D.C., Hawaii, overseas, etc.)
Besides that, the Navy personnel that got booted out of Moffett, (
they didn't close the base, just operate it out of a different pot of
federal money, wheres the real savings? more like smoke and mirrors),
those people including myself all got moved to Whidbey or Barbers
Point, where you ended up paying on average 20-30% out of pocket
because of inadequate BAQ/VHA rates, it took about 6 years to catch
up.


On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:26:36 +0000 (UTC), Merlin Dorfman
wrote:

user ) wrote:
: Awesome photos! Brings back a lot of memories. They never should have
: kicked the Navy out of Moffett, I did 8 years there. You can thank
: dellums and feinstein for that!

I'm amazed nobody has jumped on this. It's remotely possible
that you can thank Dellums and Feinstein for making the Navy want to
leave the Bay Area (Hunters Point, Mare Island, Alameda, etc.), but
the fact is that by the time he retired Dellums and the military
actually got along very well--some change on the military's part but
mostly Dellums understanding that the military is not a bunch of baby
killers. Feinstein actually has gotten along well with the military,
starting when she was mayor of San Francisco and continuing during
her time in the Senate. She tried hard to get the Missouri home-
ported in San Francisco when it was still in service.
Ultimately, though, it's the cost of living in the Bay Area
that makes it unwise to to ask military personnel to try to live
there on their pay. The Navy was happy to accept closing of all Bay
Area facilities as part of BRAC.