Fate of armory resonates
Local group forms to save Ontario
Readiness Center
Sunday, April 12, 2009 2:11 AM PDT
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| Larry Meyer | Argus observer
Construction crews are hard at work on the Ontario Readiness Center Friday. A group of local officials has formed to find a way to keep the armory open if a state-mandated 30 percent reduction goes into effect. |
ByLarry Meyer
Argus Observer
ONTARIO -A week after Oregon Military Department officials raised the specter of the closure of the new Ontario Readiness Center, state and local leaders are gearing up for a campaign to save the structure and the unit it serves.
Last week, the Oregon Military Department announced it could be forced to close 25 armories across Oregon as part of a state-mandated 30 percent budget-reduction blueprint.
The budget reduction is based on a May revenue forecast, which is expected to reveal a bigger state deficit than previously projected.
All state agencies were required to present a list of cuts to meet the 30 percent reduction.
After a meeting with Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell, deputy director, Oregon Military Department, Friday morning, Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said the main issue is the Military Department cannot be viewed as just another state agency.
“The mission of the Guard is to protect and defend our borders,” Ferrioli said. Its mission is to interact with communities and be available for emergencies, he said, and it also must serve a national role.
“One-half of the Oregon National Guard is being deployed,” Ferrioli said.
Ferrioli said Caldwell remarked that the budget reduction discussion has been going on for about eight months, but in the range of 5 to 10 percent.
“People didn’t realize how serious it was,” Ferrioli said.
Also, if a community loses state money for the Guard, federal money is also lost, Ferrioli said.
Ferrioli said the new armory is funded to completion. The question is whether it will open.
Local leaders rally
A small group of county, city and college officials also met Friday to discuss local response to the armory issue.
The effort must be a unified one to find success, TVCC Public Information Officer Abby Lee said.
“It has to be the (whole) community,” Lee said.
Yet community colleges are also in a funding bind of their own. Small colleges across the state, including TVCC, face big fiscal cuts.
That leaves local college leaders facing a bewildering array of challenges and openly wondering what budget challenge — the armory or the college — to support. The group Friday agreed that after more research about the local Guard unit, another meeting could be called to discuss a local response.
State Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, said he supported the concept of a local group organizing to support the armory. The important thing is to make sure that the need is clear and that the need can be justified, he said. Also, he said the communities that have armories need to band together. However, he cautioned that just having a good argument does create any more money.
Economic impact
A typical Guard unit injects federal and state money back into a local community and Ontario’s citizen-soldier unit is no exception.
The unit, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry, consist of more than 60 individuals, including three full-time Guardsmen.
Those citizen-soldiers record an annual economic impact for Malheur County of more than $500,000.
“And that doesn’t count the services we buy locally. A lot of different things are purchased locally that we don’t even calculate. I think you are looking, really, at well on the order of closer to a million dollars annually for Ontario,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell said the armory closure mandate is a real possibility, and such a move would severely impact not only Eastern Oregon’s main Guard unit — the 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry — but the rest of Oregon as well.
“If you cut us 30 percent, it is game, set and match,” he said.
Another critical element to the ongoing armory saga revolves around the federal/state funding coalition for the Guard.
Under the pact signed between the state and the federal government regarding the construction of a new armory — such as the one in Ontario — if the facility is not used as an armory for 25 years, the state must pay back the money spent by the federal government for the building.
Currently, the Federal government has paid 75 percent of the total construction costs of the new Ontario armory.
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