Okaloosa County BOCC — May 19, 2015 — DRAFT Review of the proposed Scope of Work to be requested of the Institute of Senior Professionals — reading text

Staff Review of Proposed ISP Scope of Work Recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners County Administrator 5/8/2015 Review of the proposed Scope of Work to be requested of the Institute of Senior Professionals (ISP) of the Northwest Florida State College. The scope of work would require ISP to prepare and present findings at the Board’s Airports Strategic Competiveness Planning Workshop scheduled in September. The item was distributed at the May 2, 2015 Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners Meeting, resulting in action for staff’s evaluation and recommendations to be brought back for the Board’s consideration for the next meeting on May 19, 2015. The Board is considering soliciting the assistance of the Institute of Senior Professionals (ISP) for the purpose of evaluating the local airspace in an effort to focus on ensuring that the Military Installations located in Okaloosa County and underpinning the economic foundations of the Northwest Florida Region are not adversely impacted by the next round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) proceedings anticipated to occur in 2017, resulting in the reference BRAC 2017. BRAC is a process of the United States Department of Defense (DOD) and consists of an independent nine-member panel appointed by the President. This panel evaluates a list of recommended installations provided by the Pentagon through the Secretary of Defense, and after taking testimony from interested parties, usually members of the House and Senate, and paying visits to affected bases undertakes a systematic evaluation of defense installations for the realignment, transfer and disposal of assets and facilities. The BRAC process is necessary to ensure the highest level of defense readiness within the budgetary levels established by the legislative and executive branches of the United States Government. The BRAC process was created in 1988 and has resulted in the closure of 350 installations through five rounds of the process in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2005. Since 2005, the DOD has made two requests for additional rounds of BRAC, which have been rejected by Congressional committees and Congress has effectively blocked further rounds of BRAC with The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014: No future Base Realignment and Closure rounds for military installations within the United Sates, its commonwealths, territories, and possessions for realignment or closure shall be authorized until, at the very earliest, the Department of Defense has completed and submitted to Congress a formal review of the overseas military facility structure, which incorporates overseas basing consolidations, an assessment of the need for bases to support overseas contingency operations, and the Department of Defense's Strategic Choices and Management Review. Given the current geo-political situation, with wars on terrorism on multiple fronts, growing instability in the Middle-East, aggressive adventures by Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea, and China’s grab for disputed territory in the South China Sea as well as other parts of Asia, it appears unlikely that Congress will allow further rounds of BRAC in the near future. The Eglin Air Force Base reservation spans three counties and nearly 740 square miles making the challenge of understanding all of the competing activities for use of the Eglin complex land, water, and air ranges/airspace an extremely complex undertaking. The most recent undertaking of this scale was done for the Gulf Regional Airspace Strategic Initiative (GRASI). The purpose of the initiative was to develop a “first of its kind” regional airspace strategic plan. The GRASI process was designed to assess the direction, control and handling of the combined future civil and military flight operations and produce a plan embodied in a document to be implemented by diverse military and civilian stakeholders. The plan documented requirements and evaluated methods of optimizing access to airspace for all military, commercial, and general aviation stakeholders across Northwest Florida, as well as southern portions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A multi-disciplinary team consisting of high-level military and contracted civilians participated in the assessment which was run by SAIC commencing in October 2008. In May 2011, 2|Page the final meeting of the Initiative was held at the FAA Headquarters in Washington D.C. . The Executive Steering Committee, composed of high-level military and civilian authorities, unanimously adopted the resulting plan. Developing this plan took approximately 3 years, cost millions of dollars, and required significant airspace simulation and modeling of highly classified military (Air Force and Navy) aircraft operations as well as information about the testing of various weapon systems, many of which were in the research and development phases. As the sole entity responsible for all aviation activity within the Military Operating Area (MOA), the DOD must be directly involved with any new assessment of the local airspace. Additionally, it is expected that extremely specialized contractors, including MITRE and SAIC which perform such complex analysis, would also have a role to play. With regard to the item on the ISP Scope of Work regarding “Scheduling techniques used to accommodate the varied activities which impact the airspace”, the DOD is once again fully responsible for controlling and scheduling activity in airspace deemed the MOA and the Department’s involvement would certainly take precedence over agencies that “direct the air activity (Federal, State, County, AF, and Local).” The scope item “Relative priorities of interested parties”, given the significance of the military installations to the region both in terms of economic impacts and national defense, the only interested party of any relevance is the Military. The County’s Airports play a significant role in providing the military essential and beneficial transportation and logistics and diverse training opportunities, as well as supporting the role of the military in the region. Toward the item addressing “Okaloosa County’s influence over the interested airspace and facility parties”, the County has little to no influence as the DOD controls the MOA and airport operations are restricted to limited airspace corridors for civil operations authorized through the military; the new Air Traffic Control Tower at Destin Executive Airport (DTS), for example, will be operated by FAA’s civil contract controllers, but will have to operate in a subordinate role to the Eglin Air Force Base (EAFB) control and secure approach and departure clearance through Eglin Air Traffic Control. With respect to Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS), the current enabling Enhanced Use lease and Joint Use Agreements set to expire in 2038, recognize that VPS serves a beneficial role for the military and provides for a maximum of 84 operations per day; the airport currently handles 37 which is down from 41 just a few years ago owing to larger airplanes with higher seating capacities and fewer frequencies, replacing the smaller airplanes. Furthermore, the enabling agreements in place (Condition 27 of the EUL and Section 7 of the JUA) with the military, for the County to operate VPS extends undisputable and unilateral authority to the military to terminate the agreement and curtail all civil aviation activity should it be deemed necessary for the mission of EAFB. The County is allowed to operate a civil air-service terminal only as a privilege and without any binding rights or recourse. 3|Page On the Scope of Work regarding “Funding sources for all the activity Encroachment on the Enterprise that could affect a future BRAC round”, the County is eligible for and receives Federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) entitlement and discretionary and Military Airport Program (MAP) funds through appropriations and also receives State of Florida, Department of Transportation (FDOT) aviation funds for airport improvements, none of which can and should be curtailed to “prevent” encroachment on the [Eglin Complex] Enterprise, as these funds are more often than not expended to support Eglin’s mission of providing transportation and logistics. Finally, in addressing the last Scope of Work item “Overall management of the Enterprise”, it is assumed to mean the Eglin Complex. If a correct assumption, the DOD exerts management responsibility as noted before with the County closely coordinating the operations of VPS with the operational command at the EAFB. If the Enterprise is to mean the Department of Airports Enterprise Fund, then it would be within the purview of the Board to request ISP’s assistance. The expansive breadth of the scope of work and its span of influence transcends the County’s military installations as Tyndall Air Force Base and Naval Air Station Pensacola have a sizable military presence from which the entire Florida Panhandle region benefits. Should the Board decide to proceed with the Scope of Work as provided to protect against BRAC, it would benefit from proposing a single regional initiative similar to GRASI without burdening it with a timeline corresponding with the Board’s Airports Strategic Competiveness Planning Workshop scheduled in September. 4|Page