State checks out Glasgow base as evacuee site

Billings Gazette | September 9 2005

Montana's Commerce Department director flew to Glasgow Tuesday afternoon for an on-site assessment of the housing and ancillary facilities at the former Glasgow Air Force base.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has offered the base as a possible relocation center for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Tony Preite said his first purpose was to assess the number of available dwellings that might be used as temporary homes for the thousands of people displaced by the storm that decimated Louisiana and Mississippi coastal cities last week.

Schweitzer has offered the northeastern Montana location, estimating that 600 families might be housed there.

Preite said it is too early to say how many people might be housed or what it might cost and who would pay for it.

Schweitzer, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Tuesday visiting with the provincial Premier Gordon Campbell, said "Montana wants to be helpful."

He added, however, that in his visits with FEMA officials over the weekend they indicated Glasgow might be "too far away" in the short term, but there might be some possibilities later.

Twenty-eight states have offered to take evacuees. Sixteen have already received thousands.

"There are some legal and physical challenges that need to be fixed" before Glasgow could be used, Schweitzer said.

Glasgow Air Force Base was closed in 1972. Since then numerous proposals for the facility and base housing have come and gone. Some materialized, while others have failed.

The base's flight line - runway and hangers - is owned by Boeing Co., which uses it as a test flight facility. The base housing has gone through several development and ownership phases.

Larry Mires, executive director of Two Rivers Economic Growth, said Tuesday the housing was first sold to a private individual who created the St. Marie Condo Association. It was subsequently sold to a Seattle company, which went into bankruptcy, he said. After that, the ownership fragmented into a number of competing claims and lawsuits.

"Right now there is a group of people in Billings giving depositions as to who owns what and where," Mires said.

Housing 600 families at the base "is possible," he said, "if all the parties cooperate. It is a big mess." He said that between three and 10 individuals have a vested interest in the dwellings.

Mires, a retired school teacher, has lived in Glasgow since 1969. The Two Rivers Economic Group is privately funded by local businessmen.

State Sen. Sam Kitzenberg, R-Glasgow, said not all the homes are in good repair. He estimated there were 450 duplexes at the former Strategic Air Command base that was home to B-52 bombers during the height of the Cold War.

He said there is a former hospital on the base, which could be taken over by a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit rather quickly. The building needs a new roof, which could be done in a week, he said.

As for money and where it would come from, Kitzenberg said the federal government is expected to bear the cost in one form or another. Congress has already authorized $10.5 billion for disaster relief and President Bush Tuesday said he would ask for an additional $40 billion.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Tuesday said congressional leaders were drafting an economic relief package to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina with health care, housing and economic development.

"We are looking at a plan that will give a shot in the arm to America's economy and help provide assistance to those in need on the Gulf Coast," he said.

Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, is a federal program that requires states to pay a percentage for covering residents. The proposed relief would have the federal government pick up 100 percent of the tab for states, including Montana, that treat Hurricane Katrina victims. Baucus is also looking at providing compensation to Montana and other states hospitals that treat Katrina evacuees.

Other ideas include a $2 billion welfare contingency fund to provide housing and other assistance to low-income people hurt by the disaster and allowing hurricane victims tax-penalty-free withdrawals from retirement accounts, and extended and expanded unemployment benefits to people who have recently been laid off from their jobs.

FAIR USE NOTICE