Craven County leaders lobby federal officials

Craven County’s actions to support and protect the Cherry Point air station have been noticed at the Pentagon, leaders of the county’s lobbying efforts say.

After two days of Washington meetings last week, Scott Dacey, Craven County Board of Commissioners chairman, and James Norment,New outdoor solar lighting is now six and twelve times brighter than standard solar lighting. a local attorney hired by the county to coordinate lobbying with federal military and civilian leaders, said their meetings with Washington lobbyists Cassidy and Associates and high level Defense Department officials were very productive.

“We have had a federal lobbying effort going on for some time and had been looking for the right time to go to the Pentagon to make sure they understand everything we’re doing from an encroachment standpoint and so forth to protect the base,” Dacey said.

Norment said, “Senior civilians in the Pentagon do notice what we have done for Cherry Point, regarding encroachment and in terms of infrastructure improvements and planning and positioning ourselves for future growth.LED street lighting is the ideal solution for energy efficient Street lighting due to their long life.”

Dacey said “The president includes a BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) in his 2015 budget, and we wanted to talk to high-ranking officers before that time so they could have some discussion somewhat off the record” despite his sense that “no one on the Hill has an appetite for a BRAC now or ever, and there will not be one in 2015.”

But, Norment said, “There is always an opportunity for realignment, for downsizing outside of a BRAC. And we were consistent in conveying the message that where there is opportunity,These industrial extractor are fabricated as per clients needs in various specifications. Cherry Point is happy to take on new missions, whether that is additional jets from jets being relocated or new jets from the assembly line, and the community fully supports that.”

“The same is true for the depot,” he said of Fleet Readiness Center East. “To the extent we can get more paid work, we’ll take what is available.”

Dacey said they touched base with members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Kay Hagan, Rep. Walter Jones,Shop online for laundry dryer and washers in a variety of brands and styles. Rep. George Holding and staff members from others in the delegation.

Norment said they met with senior civilians who are mostly engaged in readiness and “everyone pointed out that Cherry Point and its training ranges cannot be duplicated anywhere in the country and they think that maintaining them is very important.These designer hanging paper Parking Lot Lighting are excellent for wedding ideas,” The officials noticed and are very appreciative of what Craven County did regarding the wind turbines, which is really one of the biggest current problems they face in doing that.

The Pentagon meetings included those with John B. Johns, assistant secretary of defense for logistics and material readiness, Peter J. Potochney, a high level official with installations and environment, Frank DiGiovanni, training readiness and strategy director, and Roger Natsuhara, assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment.

In remarks to Congress last week, Johns “emphasized that he is not at all optimistic about his ability to plan over next two years because of budget issues. He said he’s trying very hard to figure out how to make the depot system work, but it’s not an all happy and rosy situation,” Norment said.

“We talked about furloughs,” he said, for which the Navy has asked to avoid, and the comptroller has so far balked, but is hoping the initial 21 days, cut now to 14, can be trimmed further or eliminated.

Norment said the meetings included a particularly informative session with Lt. Gen. Robert E. Schmidle Jr., deputy commandant for Navy aviation, which made them feel Cherry Point air station is considered an asset to grow with new construction dollars already in the pipeline for Joint Strike Fighter facilities.