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OGDEN, Utah (AP) -- Since the Base Realignment and Closure Commission added California's Defense Language Institute to the list of bases considered for closure, Utah base boosters have been split over whether the chance of the Beehive state getting the mission is merely low or nearly impossible.
"Even if there's a 10 percent chance, the people of Utah deserve it," said Rick Mayfield, executive director of the Utah Defense Alliance. "I think the probability is low, but I think the mission of UDA is to bring military jobs to Utah."
"You got a better chance of winning the Publishers Clearing House, the Reader's Digest Grand Prize and a plane falling on your head than you do of getting DLI," said former U.S. Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, who is a member of the commission.
UDA President Vickie McCall doesn't think Utah should try for language work, which she says has nothing to do with the mission at Hill Air Force Base.
"It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole," McCall said.
Hansen's successor, Rep. Rob Bishop, said it's worth going after and that Utah should have had the work to begin with.
While still in Congress, Hansen supported to bring DLI to Utah in the 1995 BRAC round.
At the time, the Army had approached the state to put together a proposal to move the facility from its expensive Monterey home. But former President Clinton's chief of staff backed the Monterey area.
"We should have had it already if it wasn't for Clinton," Bishop told the Standard-Examiner. "He stuck it to us again."
Hansen said that even in 1995, he wasn't convinced of the DLI-to-Utah option, but played the part of a politician.
"Don't say that our (congressional) office was a big supporter of the idea," he said. "That's a lie."
When the BRAC commission added the language institute to the list for closure consideration Tuesday, the concept was to consolidate the institute with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Bishop's office is trying to work out the details to align the plan with the Ohio delegation, which wants to keep the Air Force school and wouldn't mind getting the Naval Postgraduate School.
So, while the plans between Utah and Ohio are not intertwined, they are also not in conflict.
"It's not a slam dunk, but there is a potential for it," Bishop said.
The logic behind the transfer of the DLI to Utah rests on the state's existing base in foreign languages, with academically strong and diverse language programs at the university, plus the number of foreign language-speaking returned Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionaries.
Hansen, who lives Farmington, has recused himself from voting on anything involving Utah bases.
"It would take the BRAC commission to do it, and Utah hasn't even been considered," Hansen said of the Utah plan. "They'd have to get seven (of nine) commissioners (to approve the move). Who's going to talk to those seven commissioners-- Who's going to listen to them-- ... I think I could totally guarantee it's not going to get (DLI)."
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
