Alaska News

Anchorage amps up efforts to battle potential troop reductions

A group of Anchorage community and business leaders joined together Tuesday under one mission: to keep troops and personnel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and in Alaska.

To do this, they will have to sell the Department of Defense and the Army on the benefits troops and their families glean from the Last Frontier and in turn the socioeconomic side effects the state and the municipality would incur if they left, said Municipal Manager George Vakalis.

The municipality hopes to avoid the loss of thousands of positions at JBER as the Army determines how to eliminate 120,000 positions -- going from a peak of 570,000 soldiers to 450,000 by the end of September 2017.

For JBER, the worst-case scenario would mean a loss of 5,300 soldiers and personnel. There are currently about 6,000 Army soldiers on base. For Fort Wainwright, it could mean the loss of 5,800 personnel on a base where there were an estimated 5,880 active-duty military personnel between July and September 2014.

As part of the reduction process, Army and Department of Defense officials are visiting 30 Army installations across the country and overseas. In each community, they will attend a "listening session," designed as a forum where the public can describe the potential impacts of troop reduction on their hometowns.

On Feb. 23, they will land in Anchorage. Aside from the mandatory listening session, the officials' agenda remains largely up to the municipality, Vakalis said. "It's our show."

On Tuesday, Vakalis called a swath of representatives to Anchorage City Hall to help plan it, including leaders from the fields of health care, education, business, tourism and nonprofit services.

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"If we're going to make a case as to why Anchorage, Alaska, is the right place for the Army to be, then it's going to take all of you," he said.

Vakalis, a retired Army colonel, also asked the local media to bolster the group's cause.

To the various representatives Tuesday, he ticked off "key military considerations" for keeping soldiers in Alaska that included its strategic location, "excellent deployment platforms," the Port of Anchorage, railroad connectivity and its training areas that "are second to none." All communities involved in the potential reduction process, he said, will make the argument that the shedding of positions would leave them "economically devastated."

He recommended the representatives help organize a tour of Anchorage for the visiting officials, though he also challenged them to come up with a better idea.

"Why not show these folks everything that Anchorage has to offer -- culturally, socially, hospitals, education as well as recreation," he said.

From Anchorage, the officials will travel to Fairbanks on Feb. 24. Vakalis said Tuesday that Anchorage must work with Fairbanks to show what Alaska, overall, can offer the military.

"This isn't about Anchorage vs. Fairbanks," he said. "It can't be because if we take that approach we're going to lose."

Vakalis said Mayor Dan Sullivan has allowed the municipality to engage in a contract with Art Services North to assist with planning the Army and Department of Defense officials' visit, though a contract had not been finalized by Tuesday.

To co-chair the municipality's group, Vakalis asked Bill Popp, president and chief executive officer of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, and Julie Saupe, president and chief executive officer of Visit Anchorage.

While the U.S. Army Alaska issued a statement in November saying that JBER and Fort Wainwright were among the 30 installations the Army studied to evaluate the environmental impacts of a potential force reduction, Bryce Hyslip, communications director for the mayor's office, said it wasn't until this month that the municipality found out it would have the opportunity to participate in the officials' visit.

Sullivan asked representatives Tuesday to determine what they could contribute to the municipality's efforts before the group reconvenes to discuss Feb. 23.

"We've got three weeks and six days to be prepared for a very important meeting," Popp said.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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