Military Bases
"No Sale!"

Now that the Pentagon has recommended the closing of 33 major military installations throughout the United States lawmakers will be focused on NIMBY (Not in my back Yard) as they seek to protect defense spending and jobs in their respective communities.

Closing military bases and forts is nothing new in North America. The first mass closing and downsizing of forts occurred just after the British militarily expelled the French from North America in 1763. My favorite Fort Closing story actually occurred right here in Pittsburgh, the city where I acquired and 14 years later sold RE/MAX of Pennsylvania n/w.

In 1772 a beleaguered and debt ridden British government decided to close Fort Pitt to cut their military budget and shuffle troops to the politically unstable Colony of Massachusetts. It was at this very site, 20 years earlier, that the French built Fort Duquesne to secure their claims from the source of the Ohio River to the Mississippi. The Governor of Virginia decided to challenge the French claim by sending a small military contingent under the command of Colonel George Washington to insist that the French abandon the Ohio Valley. During a skirmish, now near Uniontown Pennsylvania, Colonel Washington would fire shots that would launch the War for Empire. Several years later General Forbes would finally drive the French from Fort Duquesne. Forbes gave George Washington the honor to raise the British Flag, on November 25, 1758, over the charred ruins of the French Fort. A new fortification was ordered to be built by Forbes and he named it Fort Pitt after Britain's Prime Minister William Pitt.

Fourteen years later, after the British closed the fort in 1772. John Connolly, in 1774, mustered a group of militia and garrisoned the fortification claiming the territory, under the authority of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, for the Colony of Virginia. "Fort Dunmore Virginia!" was the cry as Connolly pointed to the exploits of George Washington as proof of Virginia's claim. The local Magistrate and Prothonotary, Arthur St. Clair, was not impressed with Connolly's account of Virginia Colonial history. St. Clair, issued a warrant for John Connolly’s arrest in the name of King George III and imprisoned him in Hannastown. A lengthy conversation ensued between Governor Penn and Governor Dunmore and counter arrests were made by Virginia. Connolly was released and returned to Fort Dunmore. In 1775 Lord Dunmore was in a desperate position. He and Connolly had been working with the crown to ally Western Pennsylvania Native Americans against the pending colonial insurrection. These efforts failed and by the Summer of 1775 Lord Dunmore found himself in a position where the revolutionaries controlled much of his political base in Virginia. Connolly, who was still in Fort Dunmore, realized he and his militia were now in hostile territory as it was overflowing with both Virginia and Pennsylvania Revolutionary War Patriots. Even Arthur St. Clair had resigned his position as the King's Prothonotary and was now a Colonel in the Continental Army involved in America's attack on Canada. Connolly's loyalist position was untenable and he fled the Fort. It, therefore, fell to Captain John Neville and about 100 Pittsburgh militiamen to take command of the fort and reclaim it for Pennsylvania.

Arthur St. Clair would go on to become the 9^th President of the United States in Congress Assembled and under his presiding office the federal government would enact both the U.S. Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance. As crucial as the former was; it was the implementation of the Northwest Ordinance that held high the hopes for a nearly bankrupted United States. This Ordinance of 1787 was passed to federally govern land that would become the five States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Northwest Ordinance was a crucial to the formation of the United Sates as all 13 states released their claims to the vast territory empowering a weak federal government with control over the Northwest Territory. Other articles in the ordinance provided a mechanism for the federal government to sell large tracts of land to speculators, immigrants and citizens. This capital would become the primary income utilized to fund the federal treasury and eventually retire the debt incurred during the Revolutionary War.

Sixteen years later in 1803, Thomas Jefferson would follow this 1787 blueprint by selling Louisiana Purchase land to fund the federal government and retire the acquisition debt. In fact this form of land sale funding was so crucial to the United States' budget that each and every President personally executed all federal land grants until 1833 when Andrew Jackson delegated this exhaustive duty to personal secretaries. The sale of federal land in the 18^th and early 19^th Centuries, including the auction of archaic forts, was the major source of federal funding in the early years of the Republic. Today federal lands are consistently sold, mostly by auction, to the citizens and speculators in all 50 States. These sales, however, represent only a small and irregular source of the income necessary to conduct the business of the the United States of America.

In 2006, after the political fallout settles on the current downsizing of U.S. Military Bases, the sale of these assets could yield unprecedented capital in what is currently the most profitable real estate market in American History. For instance, the Fort Monmouth area, where I "cut my teeth" in marketing real estate and restoring historic properties, is situated on the northern Jersey Shore. Properties I traded and restored in the early eighties for $100,000 to 200,000 are now worth $2 to 3 million as this is one of the fastest growing real estate markets in the United States. This unprecedented real estate appreciation, in densely population markets, is the rule and not the exception surrounding many of these vast Pentagon holdings. Aside from the Pentagon projected $45 billion in savings, real estate sales from these bases and forts could net our nation financial windfalls if properly brokered. An example of what could be netted is reflected in a recent Bureau of Land Management real estate sale on several large desert parcels in the Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan area. The result was considered, by most real estate experts, a huge success netting unprecedented prices for BLM desert property.

I, respectfully, DISAGREE with this method of liquidating federal real estate.

These BLM, Pentagon and other federal property sales are short-sighted and as archaic as the Northwest Ordinance land sales of the 18th Century. Yes federal property has appreciated and the auction method has netted better then fair market value on many parcels. Yes the government would be wise to liquidate unwanted federal land and military bases in the current real estate markets that are ladened with artificial value. There is, however, a much more sound model for property liquidation, FEDERAL LAND LEASES. Bill Gates didn't sell MSDOS to IBM and now the company dwarf's Big Blue. China didn't sell Hong Kong to the British and now this communist nation has inherited one of the world's great capitalistic cities. Frankly, the auction of these and all future public U.S. lands would better serve the People of the United States by being LAND LEASED instead of being sold to the highest bidder.

Long term LAND LEASES, say 50 to 60 years, would net the federal government capital windfalls while alleviating the nation of costly building maintenance and repair of vacant property. Most importantly, in 2055-2065, the improved real estate would revert back to the people to be leased again, returned to military/federal use or set aside for preservation purposes. Additionally, a steady cash flow and TOP DOLLAR could be realized from federal land leases if the terms were structured so portions of the money would flow-in on a yearly basis, instead of one lump sum. This cash flow would be a true and predictable windfall to the U.S. Pentagon, BLM or National Park Service operating budgets while the real estate is improved and readied for federal lease recycling for in the next century.

If your community looses the NIMBY Base Battle of 2005 take heart in the fact the land can be preserved for future federal re-development if LAND LEASED. Point to China's reacquisition of Hong Kong in 1999, Bill Gates' MSDOS and urge your politicians to enact legislation requiring long-term LAND LEASES for the abandoned forts and bases. In a twinkling of an eye, if the federal property is land leased, your grand and great grand children will have the opportunities to re-lease or even reestablish new bases or federal projects in their 22nd Century backyards. Truly, FEDERAL LAND LEASES are the very least we can do for these future Americans who are clearly poised to inherit an energy depleted and debt ridden 22nd Century as capitalistic consumption spreads through China, India and a host of other Asian nations.

With warm personal regards, I am your most humble and obedient Servant,

Stanley L. Klos