War is hell, but moving is worse. Just ask the folks at Chanute Air Force Base, who by September must pack, label, load and ship out nearly everything on this soon-to-close 2,460-acre training facility.
That includes not just phones, desks and training manuals, but a helicopter, an aging C-130 cargo plane and the endless dusty boxes of just plain stuff tucked away in the corners of any 75-year-old institution.
“It’s everything from the office Christmas tree to a 2,000-pound anchor that the Navy guys want,” sighed Dennis Naiberg, part of a 15-man team coordinating the move, which began in earnest this month and will end Sept. 30 at the Downstate base.
A veritable war room, covered in color-coded charts and graphs, traces the effort: 13,608 items moved so far out of 56,000; 1.2 million pounds of the 6.4 million total, most of it bound for bases in Texas, California and Mississippi.
“When you think of the logistics that went into the Persian Gulf, well, we have the same kind of problems,” said Chief Master Sgt. Howard Vosburgh, Naiberg’s harried-looking boss.
On the other side of the base’s gates, Mayor Katy Podagrosi would agree.
For four years, her village of 18,000 has been preparing to make its giant move, from an economy based on Chanute to one that must try to survive without the base it grew up around.
Rantoul’s story is one being repeated in dozens of communities across the U.S. that are being stripped of their military bases as the defense budget is slashed.
More than 100 military facilities have been slated for closing from Louisiana to New Hampshire, and dozens more are expected to join the ranks when the Defense Department releases a closure list in March.
In big cities with diverse economies, losing a base hurts, but it’s rarely a debilitating blow. In other communities, like those surrounding Ft. Sheridan north of Chicago, a shutdown can even pay dividends if the land is coveted by developers.
But in cities like Rantoul, where land is cheap and jobs are dear, a base closing threatens everything.
Here the shock came in December 1988, when the Defense Department released its first list of 86 military installations it intended to close. Chanute insiders had heard their base, with its 6,000 officers, students and civilian employees and nearly 4,500 jobs, wasn’t on the list. They were wrong.
Immediately after the announcement, the bottom fell out of the Rantoul real estate market. Small businesses closed. Officials predicted the loss of a third of the village’s population and more than half of its schools.
Today, as commercial moving vans hired by the base begin rumbling through the community, the picture is somewhat brighter, thanks to a tireless effort by village officials to lure companies and jobs.
So far, more than 60 companies have expressed interest in buying or leasing buildings on the base, which hugs the south edge of Rantoul.
Some of the best possibilities, like a coveted United Airlines maintenance facility that would have provided 5,000 jobs, have fallen through. Other proposals, like one to turn the base into a giant transcendental meditation school, appear to be collapsing, with the village’s blessing.
But other proposals offer real hope, if not thousands of jobs. J.B. Hunt, for instance, a large trucking firm, wants to open a 200-job facility on the base by July. Caradco, another company that builds specialty windows, is open, providing a handful of new jobs.
While those small businesses will never replace Chanute and its $162 million payroll, they offer the best chance of keeping Rantoul alive, local leaders believe.
But as the September closing deadline approaches, a new federal roadblock is threatening to halt Rantoul’s efforts to speed the transition and get the new jobs in place as quickly as the old ones are lost.
The village got word this year that any new lease or sale of military property anywhere in the world must be approved by D.J. Atwood, a deputy secretary of defense. Earlier, just the approval of the Air Force, based on a raft of studies provided by Rantoul, had been sufficient.
Problem is, Atwood isn’t there anymore. He lost his job in the transition between administrations and hasn’t been replaced, according to Maj. Barbara Claypool, the Air Force’s base-closure spokeswoman.
Atwood’s rule, however, did not depart with him. “The policy is still in effect, even though he is no longer here,” she said.
For places like Rantoul, that means dozens of crucial leases are piling up somewhere on an empty desk deep in the Pentagon.
“My stomach hurts every time I think about it,” Podagrosi said with a sigh.
According to Claypool, Rantoul’s leases-most of them submitted in December-haven’t made it to the empty desk. They’re still being processed by the Air Force agency charged with base disposal.
But Podagrosi has little faith that the whole mess will be sorted out in time to satisfy the companies she has worked so hard to line up. One small company has pulled out, saying it was unable to wait.
“Eventually, this will all be untangled,” she said. “The J.B. Hunt one will probably be worked through the maze, but we need every one of them. Every job is a family that remains here and spends their money here.
“We’re at a crucial point. If we can get redevelopment now, we can salvage our community. But we could be decimated before this thing works out.”
Business owners around Rantoul echo the mayor’s concerns, particularly about shortening the length of that deadly lag time after the Chanute jobs leave and before new ones arrive.
“We have customers every day who tell us goodbye,” said Jim Burk, a lanky man with immaculate white hair and a black comb in his pocket who owns the village’s 90-year-old downtown barber shop. “If it just don’t take long, it will really help.”
So far, he said, his business is down only a little. He expects it to bottom out this summer when residents like Lawrence Schmeltzer, a Chanute dentist and the occupant of Burk’s chair, leave.
“We hate to leave. This is the best assignment we ever had,” Schmeltzer said over the hum of the clippers. “But it’s just part of the life.”
Since word came that Chanute would close, Rantoul has lost more than a half-dozen businesses, from LTD Hobbies, just outside Chanute’s main gate, to Spurgeon’s department store. Another two, the discount chain Pamida and the local Goodyear tire store, will close this month.
However, plenty of other businesses-particularly those that have changed their marketing strategy, paid down debts, or have anything to do with the moving business-are doing well, including the Walmart and the Chevrolet dealership, which saw its business rise 12 percent last year.
“The worst is over,” said Mark Stolkin, the president of Rogers Chevrolet. “Those businesses that were adversely affected were hurt worst by the scare. They’ve already gone.”
“The businesses still in town are here for the long run,” added Steve Vogelsang, operations manager for Gery and Al’s sporting goods. “We’ve planned for a dry spell.”
The housing market also is recovering. After a “nothing year” in 1989 following the announcement, real estate agents are again selling properties briskly, said Tom Hays, an owner and broker at Century 21 Heartland.
Because housing values have been static in Rantoul since 1989, the village’s homes have become a bargain compared with nearby areas like Champaign-Urbana, Hays said. That’s drawing in residents to fill homes vacated by departing Chanute workers.
Rantoul’s schools, however, still expect huge enrollment drops during the transition. The high school, which expects to lose 25 percent of its students, handed out pink slips Wednesday to 18 teachers, including one with 17 years of experience.
The elementary school district will be hit even harder. It expects to lose half of its 2,163 pupils and is considering closing two of its five schools.
“We’re talking about roughly 35 to 50 layoffs,” said Supt. David Glisson. “The reality of this is finally coming into focus here.”
It’s also becoming evident on the base and in the neighborhoods as families bound together by the fabric of Chanute begin saying their goodbyes.
At the base, the family support center is offering classes on stress management and resume writing.
“This is stressful for the entire base,” said Naiberg, who will lose his job in the shutdown. “The military expects to move, but you’re also talking about civil servants who have put in dozens and dozens and dozens of years here. Forty years is not uncommon.”
At Truemper Hall, where the hallways are dark and classrooms vacant, Sgt. Scott Goodspeed teaches one of his last vehicle-maintenance classes and wonders where he, his wife and their three small children will be sent.
“You never get used to it,” he said. “It hurts every time.”
George “Frosty” Reid, 40, a hefty civilian instructor in a red corduroy cap and striped golf shirt, is leaving too.
On June 14, he’ll leave behind his hometown, his sports column in the newspaper, and the elementary school basketball team he coaches and that two nephews play on. He’ll take a new job at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas.
“I grew up here. I wanted to retire here,” he said, climbing into the seat of an old C-130 cargo plane for one of the last times. “But I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve got a job.”
