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Date Published: March 30, 2004
How much would Sanford trade to save Shaw?
It’s encouraging to read an Associated Press
story appearing Sunday on the front page of this newspaper that Gov.
Mark Sanford has become a champion of protecting Shaw Air Force Base
from the next round of military installation closures.
The AP
quoted the governor as saying, “I’d trade anything off to protect
Shaw because — unlike other parts of South Carolina — if Shaw goes,
you’re talking a cataclysmic economic event in Sumter County. Shaw
is in a dangerous spot.”
We agree with his first sentence
about a “cataclysmic economic event”; as for Shaw being “in a
dangerous spot,” that remains to be seen. We believe Shaw has a
strong case for surviving the 2005 closure round, in spite of
Internet rumors that made their way into print last November,
courtesy of Columbia’s largest daily newspaper. Sanford at the time
was not helpful when he declared in the same story, while touring
the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, “The obvious is obvious. Shaw
for a long time has been in a danger zone. I don’t think we’re out
of the danger zone with regards to Shaw.” That remark followed
earlier reluctance by the governor to support substantial state
funding for local base protection organizations — he suggested
private fund-raising efforts.
It’s interesting that the
governor said he would “trade nearly anything off to protect Shaw.”
Does that mean he would be supportive of the possibility of
“blending” Air National Guard units at McIntire Air National Guard
Station with Shaw Air Force Base in order to strengthen Shaw’s
mission? This concept is being seriously studied by Air Force brass
as a means of developing a leaner operation for the future.
Perhaps the governor will now begin to connect the dots that
link Shaw’s future status to the effort to make the University of
South Carolina Sumter a four-year institution. Knowledgeable local
leaders involved in the campaign to protect Shaw believe having a
four-year public institution in the community would be a significant
factor in enhancing the base’s chances of surviving the next closure
round.
However, connecting those dots might prove a
distraction to the governor as he continues his crusade to thwart
the will of the Legislature, which overwhelmingly overrode his veto
of the Life Sciences Act that included four-year status for USC
Sumter. He is now threatening a lawsuit to kill the bill in a
grandstanding gesture aimed at shoring up his poll numbers for his
reelection campaign in 2006.
We’re grateful for the
governor’s sudden concern about Shaw’s status and its impact on
Sumter’s economy should it be axed. We would hope his concern
translates into a better understanding of how a four-year campus
would also impact our economy — one of the purposes of the Life
Sciences Act — while at the same time helping to preserve
Shaw.
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May 13, 2004 
