By George NelsonYOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- In three months or so, community leaders should have an even better grasp of the Youngstown Air Reserve Station's strengths and weaknesses. The Spectrum Group of Alexandria, Va., began its assessment of the Vienna Township air base Monday and will be in the region through Wednesday.The consulting group is being paid $45,000 plus expenses by SOAR -- Operation: Save Our Airbase Reservists -- the community group formed by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17 Ohio, to keep the base open. All U.S. military bases around the country are under review as part of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). The conventional wisdom holds that 25% of the military and naval bases will be closed after this BRAC round. "All bases will be on the table for closure and good bases will be closed in this process," Ryan said.At a news conference this morning, retired U.S. Air Force Gen. J.B. Davis, one of Spectrum's consultants, said the Vienna reserve station has done a "marvelous job" addressing several of the deficiencies he had seen when he served on the BRAC commission that reviewed the base in 1995. "I'm delighted to be here as one of the BRAC fighters because it's a whole lot more fun from this side," he offered. Spectrum includes several veterans of past base closing rounds, including base commanders and Defense Department officials. "They're here with an enormous amount of experience," Ryan said. Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Skip Hall, who is heading Spectrum's analysis of the Vienna base, said data calls -- lengthy questionnaires sent to all military bases -- for the analytic phase of BRAC should continue into the fall. On May 16, 2005, the secretary of defense will issue hisrecommendations to the BRAC commission on which bases should remain open and which closed. The commission in turn will visit and review the bases targeted for closing; one aspect of the review consists of holding regional hearings.Congress would have BRAC submit its base closing list to the president by Sept. 8, 2005. By November 2005 at the latest, the president must then recommend the realignments -- all or nothing -- to Congress, which has 45 legislative days to act. Spectrum is representing eight other operation this BRAC round, including Cleveland's Defense Finance and Accounting Center. Hall said Spectrum is being "very cautious -- some would say overcautious" about potential conflicts of interest, and turned town potential clients as recently as this weekend. The criteria employed in BRAC are "very broad," Hall said, but similar to those in past rounds, most emphasis placed on the necessity of facilities' missions. In addition, there is a greater emphasis on homeland security and joint functionality, or combined operations between branches. Spectrum is performing what Hall called as "SWOT analysis" -- strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats -- of the base and the community, he said. Within 90 days of their hiring, the consultants will submit a report to SOAR detailing the base's strengths and weaknesses as well as its recommendations on what the community can do to enhance the position of the reserve base and the 910th Airlift Wing stationed there. While most of the deficiencies identified in 1995 have been remedied, "You still have a transient living quarters problem, but that can be fixed," Davis said.Another problem facing the local effort: while the Vienna air lift wing's mission can be done many other places just as well and with no more difficulty, Hall observed. While no other unit has the aerial spray capability of the local unit, "the fact of the matter is C-130s can operate from lots of different places," he noted.In addition to the improvements made to the base since '95, "Not many reserve bases have the kind of recruiting base that you do, so sustaining your reserve outfit is not a problem," Davis said.Dr. John Lynch, former director of the Office of Economic Adjustment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, underscored the importance of support for the Youngstown/Warren Regional Airport and praised local officials for earmarking bed-tax money to help fund its operations. "It gives a definite guarantee of a long-term funding base," he remarked. "That is one immediate step right up front that's been taken since 1995 that strengthens your case."The operating efficiencies the air base realizes by using the facilities of the adjoining Youngstown Warren Regional Airport could put it in a more competitive position, Davis said. "Your costs of maintaining that unit here are drastically lower because of the sharing of costs between both the reserve base and the airport," he continued. "If you had two bases exactly tied on the score points but one had a higher return on investment if you closed it and the other had a smaller return on investment, the commission always leaned to the higher return on investment because the objective of the whole thing was saving the Department of Defense money. So by being located on a municipal airport you save a considerable amount of money, and the return on investment [from closing the base] would be lower."Hall said the community also needs to work on legislation to prevent encroachment on the base. One of the biggest problems for bases in recent decades has been urban encroachment, among others. Hall said he was unaware before the conference of an effort, championed by Ryan, to pursue an indoor auto racing track on property near the airport. Thus he declined comment on how such a project could affect the base's future. Ryan, however, quickly added, "We're going to make sure that we don't do anything that's going to hurt us in the BRAC process."Contact Senior Reporter George Nelson: [email protected] "