June 7, 2005: WALTER REED TO GET JULY PUBLIC HEARING IN D.C. AND SITE VISIT FRIDAY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 7, 2005

WALTER REED TO GET JULY PUBLIC HEARING IN D.C. AND SITE VISIT FRIDAY

Washington, DC--The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that she has spoken with Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission Chairman Anthony Principi, and he has agreed to a hearing on the proposed closing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in July (date, place and time TBA) instead of in Baltimore, as originally planned. Norton has begun organizing the two hour hearing, a task normally given to the senior senator representing a state, and she invites residents interested in participating to apply as indicated below. In addition, Norton’s office announced that Chairman Principi and BRAC staff will visit D.C. on fact-finding site visits to Walter Reed and to Bolling Air Force Base on Friday, June 10, 2005 (CLOSED PRESS). At the end of each site visit, Chairman Principi has agreed to a half hour discussion with residents at each location.

Members of the community who wish to participate in the hearing should go to www.norton.house.gov to send an email or fax to BRAC Hearing at (202) 225-3002. Residents should include their reasons for desiring to testify, for example, being a resident of the neighborhood, a Walter Reed employee, etc. Norton said that those testifying would not only include the appropriate elected officials but also residents in the affected neighborhoods, other residents, employees, and members of the military.

Norton said residents should not be daunted by the difficulty of getting the Department of Defense (DoD) recommendation overturned or changed, and noted that the District benefited from the last BRAC process when Norton was able to negotiate the move of the Naval Sea Systems Command that was originally to go to California. Instead 10,000 employees from D.C. and the region went to the Navy Yard, which was renovated in the process. The result has been “the renaissance of M Street SE itself,” the Congresswoman said. “I intend to look for ways for the District to benefit, not lose, from the Walter Reed proposal, and I believe citizens can help with their testimony. The process is only beginning and hearings have barely begun, nationwide,” she noted. “The fight to retain Walter Reed here is the first order of business,” Norton said. “The most obvious benefit of Walter Reed to D.C. may be its fit in the neighborhood and its profound historic and sentimental effects, but the hospital has a large direct and indirect economic impact that cannot be ignored.” She said that while the DoD has had an impressive success track record with previous BRAC commissions, the agency has not always gotten “what it asked for.”

Under the DoD proposal 5,630 jobs at Walter Reed would move to Bethesda Naval Medical Center and other military installations and Bolling would lose 399 jobs as a result of the proposed realignment of military facilities in the region.