People Saved from Becoming Paupers; Commissioners Get Pats on Back

 

 

It was a defining moment for both St. Mary’s County and the Navy: the agreement is a safeguard against encroachments that could lead to closure of the Pax River base—principal site of U.S. naval aviation– and turn the local populace into paupers overnight.

J. Frank Raley, who has service to the community in his blood, was as happy as a lark.  He had worked all his life to achieve this goal.

Pax River Commanding Officer Capt. Glen Ives twice mentioned the fun and frolic across the bridge at the grand opening of the Tiki Bar as he and Commissioner President Jack Russell (D. St. George Island) inked an anti-encroachments memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the county and the Navy on Friday afternoon.

On the occasion, House Majority leader Steny Hoyer summed up the MoU as a move to protect the hen that lays the golden eggs. “You have heard me talk about it time and time again,” Hoyer said of the encroachment issue.

More than 19,000 people– one in five residents in St. Mary’s–, get their bread and butter from the Naval Air Station Patuxent River that has an overall economic impact of more than $2 billion.

The presence of Congressman Hoyer, Maryland Lt-Gov. Anthony Brown and U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, Vice Admiral Dave Venlet, and Rear Admirals Steve Enewold and Steve Eastburg at Friday’s signing ceremony showed the agreement between the county and the Navy had national security relevance.

“It’s a symbolic show of support by the county to the Navy,” Raley told The Bay Net. “And support for not only the AICUZ (air instillations compatible use zones), but also providing the infrastructure that is needed.”

Brown, who had served in the U.S. army for 22 years and is still an army reservist, felt the mission of the base was crucial to U.S. goals of global democracy and freedom and said encroachments could undermine all that. “That we can not allow,” he said, expressing the resolve of Governor Martin O’Malley’s administration to secure the future of the Pax River base.

Capt. Ives felt the MoU reflected the symbiosis between the Navy and the local communities and said the effort would be replicated elsewhere, adding his counterpart at Indian Head was requesting a copy of the MoU. “We do need one another and we do feed one another,” he said.

He said critical aircraft such as the Joint Strike Force, Advanced Hawkeye and unmanned air systems are in the works at the base, and warned if encroachments were allowed, “the fleet is going to suffer.”

One of the most important elements of the six-point MoU signed Friday is that the Navy shall continue to review all development proposals in the vicinity of NAS Patuxent River and Webster Field as part of the County’s technical evaluation committee process for proposed development.