Social Coordination and Public Policy by Roberta Herzberg

Author:Roberta Herzberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Case Study: Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico

One such example of how an organized local constituency impacted the BRAC process to reverse their initial decision comes from Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. On May 13, 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld forwarded the Department of Defense’s list of requested closures to the BRAC Commission. Local residents quickly learned that list included Cannon Air Force Base, which then was home to a mission that involved hosting F-16 aircraft. Just three days later, on May 16, 2005, The Committee of Fifty formed Operation Keep Cannon (KDFA 2006). Although the Clovis Army Air Field had existed since the early 1940s, it was only after it converted to Cannon Air Force Base in 1957 that local businessmen began to consider how they could develop a structured committee that could represent the community and collectively deal with matters relating to the base. By 1959, the Committee of Fifty, named for the fifty local businesses that had agreed to be part of the committee, was born (Committee of Fifty, n.d.).

Operation Keep Cannon probably consisted of many lines of effort, but there is evidence of at least two coordinated campaigns. One appears to be a public rally to demonstrate support for the base from the local community, as evidenced by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s comment, “People are waiving [sic] flags, showing their patriotism. They have dedicated their lives to Cannon.” The same article where Governor Richardson is quoted mentions “1,200 people carrying signs to ‘Keep Cannon’” as a sign that the community may be able to retain the base amidst closures (KCBD 2005a).

The second line of effort appears to have been a letter-writing campaign directed at the BRAC Commission itself. Between May and June 2005, hundreds of letters poured into the BRAC Commission’s office in Arlington, Virginia, from residents of Clovis and other New Mexico towns nearby and from as far away as Amarillo, Texas, more than one hundred miles from Cannon Air Force Base. Other letters in support of keeping Cannon Air Force Base arrived later, but the bulk of them arrived just a month after Cannon was marked for closure. These letters are now part of the University of North Texas’s archival collections, which include the documents, reports, and correspondence from the 1995 and 2005 BRAC Commissions.

Although there are a few examples of letters in the collection asking to close Cannon Air Force Base, the overwhelming majority favor keeping the base. Many of the letters use dire language to request the BRAC Commission reconsider the Department of Defense’s suggestion to close Cannon. The majority of the complaints are economic, but others point out the geographical benefits of the area that would be of use to the military should the base remain. Though the arguments these concerned individuals make are interesting on their own, more remarkable is the repetition of narratives and arguments—typically word-for-word—across dozens of letters.

Sometimes the repetition comes from one person sending the same letter addressed to each

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.