Military base closure rumors have circulated for more than two years as the pending Base Realignment and Closure Round of 2005 took shape. Last month, two San Diego military bases — Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Marine Corps Recruit Depot — appeared on a list of 52 that Armed Forces News says insiders have told it will be considered for closure or realignment.

Those involved with submitting information about military bases and installations scoff at the accuracy of such a list. But the numbers involved — MCRD’s $131.4 million annual payroll employs 1,725 Marines and 906 civilians while Miramar is the region’s seventh largest employer with its $356 million annual payroll and 10,500 employees — are stark evidence of what is at stake for the county. When Pentagon planners look at where to cut, San Diego, with its nearly 300 military commands, 55,000 active duty military and 19,000 civilians, will at least get a look.

Here’s how it should happen.

On March 16, the names of all nine members nominated for the BRAC commission will be announced and the confirmation process will begin. Possibly two or more will be from California. A day earlier, Pentagon planners will have presented Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with a menu of options on how the closure will play out. Rumsfeld will submit his list by May 16. What it contains is critical during this round of BRAC. In the past, when the commission removed a base by simple majority vote, it could add a replacement the same way. This time adding a base requires seven of nine votes.

The BRAC Commission reports its recommendations to President Bush by Sept. 8. The president has 15 days to OK it. If he approves, it goes to Congress, which has 45 days to act. If Congress fails to act, the changes become law.

If the president rejects the list, the BRAC Commission has until Oct. 20 to get him another version. Should he reject that list or doesn’t forward it to Congress by Nov. 7, the process ends and no bases are closed. That is unlikely to happen. Rumsfeld has made no secret that he wants closing or realigning — where a use is absorbed by an existing base elsewhere — up to 25 percent of the nation’s bases to help fund the military of the future.

Fortunately, San Diego has been working this issue for two years, presenting voluminous information to the Pentagon, and will continue to do so.

Retired Vice Adm. Peter Hekman, who serves on the San Diego BRAC committee and the statewide effort formed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, says the region has done a good job of showing how its various bases, from Miramar to North Island and Camp Pendleton, are key cogs in a network of bases throughout the Southwest. It is that looking beyond San Diego’s borders that separates its effort from other communities.

“We have done a much better job because we have looked at every one of our bases on a regional basis that included Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and into New Mexico,” says Hekman. “We looked at the irreplaceable training ranges. We have pointed out that the vast bulk of military training takes place in this area ... and San Diego is at the center of it all.”

Hekman says there is no room for horse trading — giving up one base to save another. “We took the criteria at face value and looked at every facility based on its military value, the services it performs and can it be replaced,” he says. “We made all our decisions based on that criteria. Not only did they come up positive, but when you look at them as a network, they come up as really positive.”

Intimately familiar with BRAC is Dave Grundies, the Southwest regional vice president of the Armed Force Communications and Electronics Association and business development manager of the Harris Corp., a defense contracting firm. As a Navy captain, Grundies helped in the last round of BRAC to move the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and its program executive office to San Diego. Primarily located on Pacific Highway just outside of Downtown, SPAWAR employs thousands of San Diegans at high-paying jobs and dispenses hundreds of millions of dollars in defense contracts.

Grundies refers to the contractors who cluster here to serve SPAWAR as “beltway bandits” for their connections to Washington, D.C. If the operation moves again as part of BRAC, they would pick up and go with it. Virtually overnight, San Diego loses thousands of good jobs to another city. “When we moved here in 1997, we didn’t miss a beat,” Grundies says.

The possible loss of SPAWAR has economic development officials worried. But San Diego may have lessened that chance when it got inserted last year into the BRAC law language that said the process needed to consider the synergy of the bases and commands with the local economy. With its telecom and leading R&D institutes and schools, that bodes well for the region.

Hekman says the language “virtually parrots” what was submitted to Congress in letters from the mayor. “What (the language) means is having the synergy of laboratories, the fleet, operating forces and academic community co-located and working together to meet the requirements of the 21st century military is an item that has high value in making decisions,” Hekman says. “(Pentagon planners) don’t just look at a base independently. They look at its setting.”

When Mayor Murphy journeyed to Washington, D.C., again in January to meet with top Pentagon officials, he said as important as presenting facts was showing the military they are welcome here.

Grundies, who recalls his post-Vietnam days in the military as a young officer who changed into his uniform only after arriving on base in Norfolk, Va., says the mayor is right. “Now we are being celebrated,” he says. “We went from Vietnam to Iraq.”

Grundies says the military appreciates events like Fleet Week and encourages its members to get involved in the community, whereas in the past that wasn’t the case because it was standard to transfer regularly. “There was a time when you moved every two years like clockwork,” he says. “Then we started closing bases and there were fewer places to move to.”

That lack of places to go may actually work in San Diego’s favor. Indeed, the Regional Economic Development Corp.’s report to the Pentagon urges more be moved here.

Grundies notes that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) is chair of the House Armed Services Committee and estimates there is a 30 percent chance the acquisition command for another branch of the military may be moved to San Diego, perhaps to the East County.

“If I was in the other acquisition commands, I’d be worried,” Grundies says.