Oral History Program Jerry Stevenson Interviewed by Alyssa Kammerman 26 April 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jerry Stevenson Interviewed by Alyssa Kammerman 26 April 2021 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Hill/DDO’95 oral history project documents the 1995 and 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process and its impact on Utah. In 1993, rumors started to circulate that Hill Air Force Base and Defense Depot Ogden (DDO) would be closed by the 1995 round of BRAC, causing state officials, local government, and local grassroots lobbying group, Hill/DDO’95, to spring into action to save Utah’s military installations from closure or realignment to other facilities. This project includes interviews from a wide range of players, from congressmen, state officials, members of Hill/DDO’95, and the civilian employees of Hill Air Force Base and (DDO). Their accounts describe the process of fighting for the base, the closure of DDO, the formation of the Utah Defense Alliance (UDA) and Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) from the Hill/DDO’95 group, and their fight to save Hill Air Force Base all over again in 2005. Also discussed is the importance of the F-35 aircraft and the “Falcon Hill” Enhanced Use Lease project to the prosperity of Hill Air Force Base and military relations in Utah. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stevenson, Jerry, an oral history by Alyssa Kammerman, 26 April 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Jerry Stevenson. It was conducted on April 26, 2021 at the Weber State University Davis Campus. Stevenson speaks about his time serving as the Layton City Mayor (1994-2006) and his experiences with the 1995 and 2005 rounds of the Base Realignment and Closure. The interviewer is Alyssa Kammerman. Also in the room is Sarah Langsdon. AK: Today is April 26, 2021. My name is Alyssa Kammerman. I'm here with Sarah Langsdon, and we are speaking with Jerry Stevenson for the 1995 BRAC Project. So, thank you so much again for meeting with us today. We really appreciate it. JS: This is enjoyable and it brings back a lot of really good memories. AK: Good, I'm glad to hear that. I just wanted to start out with when did you become mayor of Layton City? Was it 1993? JS: I think it was in January of 1993 when I was sworn in, but I had been on the City Council for eight years prior to that, so I at least had an idea of what was going on and what we were up against. Then I've always been very active in politics. So, we look at, you know, what the Clinton administration was doing and what they attempted to do with base closures around the country, looking at saving a lot of money, and Hill was ‘course in the middle of that mix because of what was going on at that time. AK: Okay. When you say what was going on at that time, you mean politically? JS: Politically, yeah. Nationally, we had five air logistics centers in the United States. We had one in Texas, one in Sacramento, Utah, Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, and Warner Robbins in Georgia. The desire of the administration was 1 to cut those bases to three. President Clinton had actually made political statements that he would keep Sacramento open, even though it was one of the least efficient bases in the system, as well as San Antonio. Utah was the most efficient base in the system. So, it was quite a fight for two or three years in order to get us back to where this base was not on a closure list. AK: Why do you think that he wanted to cut the Ogden Air Logistics Center, as opposed to Sacramento and Kelly? JS: We were basically the least effective base, politically, in the country. When you look at the other bases, Georgia has massive military infrastructure that dates clear back to the Civil War. Texas was certainly the same way; there was a lot of different things done in Texas. Utah, we have a lot of strong patriotism and devotion to the military, but we also have really one massive base in the state. Politically, it just was not as appealing as looking at a California base or a Texas base to keep open. Again, we were the most efficient base in the system, and it didn't seem like it made a lot of sense to me. I'm a business guy, and I usually go where the numbers are, and the numbers are that you keep this base open. AK: Did you have any involvement in the 1993 BRAC round? JS: Well, 1993 I became mayor, and then all of a sudden there was a group that had assembled prior to that became known as the Utah Defense Alliance. The Utah Defense Alliance is kind of a loose-knit conglomeration of local politicians and businesses that recognized what a linchpin in the economy of Northern Utah that Hill Air Force Base is. 2 So, I kind of stepped into that fray and became very active that we keep the base open. This group was funded by a lot of businesses that contributed, including my business that I own, a nursery down on the west side of Layton. But we tried to put our dollars where our mouth was to try and get this base to be its lobbyists, if you will. The Air Force can't lobby for themselves, but we as a local community can. We had a gentleman by the name of Jim Hansen who was our front runner. He was involved very heavily in Hill and understood the importance of the base. We also had Senator Bennett, who was kind of a cheerleader for our military activities and what was going on was Hill Air Force Base. So, this group kind of rallied around our two elected officials—and all of our elected officials were important, but none quite as important as those two—and they helped us. We became their lobby wing to the point that if the Air Force was having a visit here, or the BRAC Commission was visiting here, we would line the streets with people that would cheer, literally, for the base. We tried to point out how important the West Desert is in this process, and we tried to point out how important the flying wing is, plus the remanufacturing and manufacturing that goes on in Hill as far as the landing gear that we have on the base or the landing gear in the Air Force system. Then also just the importance of the military aircraft that they take care of here, and how they fit into the entire military and the importance that they have. So, that's kind of what got us all involved. We'd go to Washington, DC and had meetings with various groups. Other names that are real prominent at the front of this would be Vickie McCall and Steve Rush. 3 AK: If Hill Air Force Base had closed, how would it have affected Layton City specifically? I feel like we've heard a lot about how it would have affected Ogden, but I haven't heard much about Layton. JS: I'm actually going to broaden it beyond Layton City. I think that if Hill Air Force Base would have closed, we would never see the return to economic activity that we have now in my lifetime, nor the lifetime of any of those who worked on this process. Hill Air Force Base is a linchpin to what goes on in northern Utah economically. It is at the front end of driving processes all the way from our education system at Weber State University and our high schools, to the housing market, to what drives my industry and my business, to the defense contractors that move here to support Hill. This is a big deal. We would not have absorbed this, and it would have taken generations, literally, to put this back together. There's a lot of things that could happen at Hill. That's a big runway, and it's an amazing runway. You could move FedEx up there, but they would never have the job creation that we get with Hill Air Force Base. AK: And that effect would have mainly been on northern Utah, or Utah as a whole? JS: Well, I think that would have affected the entire Utah economy, but it would have affected northern Utah much more, and we would have seen a lot of vacant housing. We would have seen vacant stores. It isn't just the 20,000 people at the time that worked at Hill, it's all the support mechanism it takes to make a base like that work. It's the Northrop Grumman's, and at the time it was ATK, and it’s Boeing. Those, they have presence here, but they have no reason to be here without Hill Air Force Base, for the most part. 4 It's the manufacturing businesses that support Hill Air Force Base. It's state economic development that goes out and finds places in rural Utah that can provide certain products for the base or for the military. The enormity, it's just amazing when you look at it and break it down. It's new grocery stores being built because of all of the pieces that I just mentioned, and many more. I just scratched the top of this. It's an incredible driving force for the economy of northern Utah and the state of Utah. I'm in a position now to where I recognize what they really do and what Hill and the Air Force really does for the state of Utah. I've heard our Speaker of the House describe that our economy is a three-legged stool. But all those legs need to be functioning, and one of those is the leg that government provides, and the integral part of making things happen that Hill Air Force Base does. So, we would not recover. This wouldn't be a ghost town, but it would certainly be a lot different than it is, without Hill Air Force Base. AK: So, I know that UDA, originally obviously, is called Hill/DDO 95. Was there a concern about how DDO would have affected the economy if that had closed as well? JS: Yeah, there is. I mean, there was a lot of things, a lot of transitions taking place to Army bases left from World War II, of which Hill Air Force Base is part of that. The base west of Ogden that is now BDO is a former base. The Freeport Center, which is in Clearfield, is an amazing economic driver, as is BDO in Ogden. The military wanted to move a lot of things away from the coast during World War II, because we didn't have a lot of understanding as to what the Axis Powers were 5 able to do as far as destroying our economy. So, as a result, we ended up with a lot of them here in Utah, Tooele Army Depot same way. But we had a lot of big government projects here, but Hill’s a real survivor of those now. AK: So, there was a little bit of a concern then about DDO’s impact on the economy, but not quite as much as involved at that time. Is that what you're saying? JS: That's correct. Again, you've got a big piece of the base—or the activities of the base—are out west of the lake with the bombing range and so forth. Well, there's no place in the continental United States that can take an airplane off of a base and have it actually to where it can start a mission or start training like you can here. They just have to make one swing across the lake very quickly and they're on to a bombing range or on to a range where they can do all kinds of maneuvers and things that they can't do anywhere else. There was discussion when the F-35 was coming. If we would not have brought the F-35 here, there was no place for the F-35 to do maneuvers in the United States, and they would probably have had to gone to Australia to do there what they do here. So, we're in a very unique place, and I'm very proud to have been part of the group effort that made that happen. AK: So, I had heard something about Layton City donating land to kind of help with encroachment. I think it also helped by moving the flight line or something like that. Is that correct? JS: That's correct. It’s not so much moving the flight line as protecting the easements underneath the flight path. There are zones at the end of runways and a crash potential zone. In other words, most airplane crashes will take place within that 6 distance. Then you have a noise zone. As a plane gains altitude, then the potential to have an accident lessens. We went down and actually lobbied the state of Utah and demonstrated the importance of Hill Air Force Base. We purchased the air easements over properties, and those are still in place, and there probably still will need to be some more work done with those. But families sold those easements. Those properties were owned by some farmers, and they sold the easement, or the right to travel over that property by air, to the state for cash money at the time. The easement then protected that from being built under. So, you take away the opportunity for a plane to go down and cause a lot of death or a lot of damage on the ground. So, to this day at least, most of this remains a hayfield up here. There are some things that Layton City would allow inside those easements. There’s a cemetery. There is a very, very light commercial, there’s a few homes. I think there’s some restrictions that you cannot put anything in that easement that would cause over 25 people to be gathered on any site at one time. So, mostly it's farmland still. I think there's some pressure to do something else with it because land prices have gone so high. But eventually, we're going to have to make a decision. Let me give you a quick example. In Oklahoma, they allowed those easements to get away from them. They viewed what we spent, I think the number was less, just around $10 million to buy the easements when we purchased them. This would be back in the ‘90s. Oklahoma Tinker Air Force 7 Base, five or six years ago, went out to reclaim the easements because they had allowed density and all kinds of things to take place under that runway. They were looking at numbers that were up close to a billion dollars to buy the easements back. Then they would have to go in and demo businesses or convert them to something that was very low population working under the easement. We were in the middle of a rezone to put an elementary school. The district wanted to put an elementary school, and Congressman Hansen got involved. We ended up putting the school in a different location. Now there's a city park in the location, but again, the population usage of that falls into a less dense area for the Air Force, and so they feel that the risk involved is fine with what they're doing there. AK: That's interesting. What kind of “save the base” efforts did you encourage the Layton City residents to be a part of? JS: We had several options of where we would literally line the intersections as these different groups went on to the base, which is just east of us here. We encouraged businesses to contribute to the UDA, so that we can make sure we had lobbyists and a lobbying effort, so that we could pay for the travel of those that had to go to Washington DC to work with our congressional folks. We did try to encourage letters: letters to congressmen, letters to the BRAC commission members, to other congressmen that were effective with the military and in the military committee about the importance of this base. Not only the importance to it from a local economy standpoint, but also important from a 8 national defense perspective. There were some of us that, as this process grew, got involved enough that we understood that, I think, fairly well. AK: I'm curious, how did you kind of get the word out for those grassroots efforts, did you have like a newsletter that you sent out or anything? JS: It was in city newsletters, and then I think a lot of it was mostly word of mouth from community leaders and direct contact with businesses that had lots of employees. In the community of Layton, there is a lot of direct contact and retirees that have retired from Hill. There's a lot of places you can go to get a lot of support for Hill Air Force Base. As a mayor of Layton, in 12 years I can count the complaints I had about Hill Force Base on one hand, and I don't think I’d use all my fingers if I really go back and think about it to count. I think people who move here understand that we do have some flyovers and I think they're respectful of those, and we're very respectful of the quality of citizens that move in here that are tied with the military. You know, we have a lot of pilots, a lot of professionals. They move in and they will help with city activities. They will coach little league teams. They do all the kind of things that good citizens should do to help make the community good. So, the military and Hill Air Force Base, pretty easy thing for me to market. AK: Why do you think that the citizens of Utah as a whole, but specifically northern Utah and Layton, are maybe more patriotic than perhaps in San Antonio or places like that? JS: I don't know that we're more patriotic. I think we just realize the importance of this base. If I go down to say San Antonio, or I go to quite a few other areas in Texas, 9 I’ve got a lot of bases. If you've got 10 and you lose one, that's not as important as it is to have one and lose one. I think it's a numbers game, but I think we just, as citizens of this area, people come here and they like to live here. This is a good place to live, and people recognize that. So, as they do, they get out and they work hard in their communities and people get to know them. I just think we recognize what a plus it is to have them here. AK: I'm sorry. I think I said San Antonio, I meant Sacramento, but what you said still applies. JS: Well, if you go to San Antonio, there's three bases right next to the one that was closed. A military base that has even 20,000 people in northern California is not the 800-pound gorilla in the room like Hill Air Force Base here is here in Utah. I think that's part of it. Then I think there's a conservatism, if you will, in northern Utah, that we understand what we can do and what they do for the nation. We want their presence. I do know that when San Antonio closed, they had more legal issues going on with the labor force in San Antonio than any of the bases across the country. San Antonio was the trouble spot. Well, that would certainly be a weight on why you would close a base, because of legal issues for employees. AK: What were the preparations for the BRAC commissioner visits? I know there was one in December 1994 and then one in May 1995. The December one they came in, they mostly toured around the community, and the May one they actually went to Hill Air Force Base. So, what are your memories of preparing for that? 10 JS: Some of us were invited to be with them during that time. We would be able to sit and have dinner with some of those commissioners and have a one-on-one conversation about why this base should be kept open. We wanted to signal support, community support. We did it with numbers and flags along the street or petitions. We had meetings with City Council, we'd bring in people to show support. We tried to make sure that the BRAC commission had the facts on Hill Air Force Base and why we were the most efficient base in the system. We made sure that message was spread throughout the system. Papers were amazing. They got that message out for us, as well as the news stations. AK: Was there anything else Layton City specifically did? JS: I went back in and I worked. We did take some money out of the general fund to make a contribution to the process and to help fund some of the activities that we had and the costs involved there. Of course, I had the opportunity to be back in Senator Bennett’s office when the announcement was made of what would happen with Hill, in not only just that announcement but with other BRAC rounds. Our goal also was not just to make sure they did not close Hill, but Hill became a destination for more jobs that would come to the area. Economies are built on jobs. If you don't have a job at the base of it, it's probably not going to go very far. So, those were the things that we pursued, but we didn't pursue just “Let's not close the base;” we pursued why this is the best base to move different activities to. AK: You said you were in Senator Bennett's office. Was that for BRAC 2005? JS: Back in Washington, DC, yes. 11 AK: Okay, tell me a little about what that was like for you? JS: It was pretty—there was a lot of hysteria. We had such buy-in on this that it was pretty euphoric. There was a lot of excitement in the room. We had a pretty good feeling. We were in a great place. But there was some cheers and backslapping that went on as we went through the process. It was a great experience. Probably one of those, you know, you look back on your life and you got a top 20 list, it’s on there. AK: Why was that such a great experience for you? JS: Well, I just think it was because first of all, the people that we had worked through this together with. We're all still friends. We all still see people, we still associate with there. Socially, we do a lot together. Your lives kind of change as you go through this. When I was mayor of Layton, my social life revolved around things like Hill Air Force Base, my activities with the folks that I'm talking about. I'm in the state Senate now, and so my social activities have certainly moved down to Salt Lake. But I will say that, you know, I look back on friendships that I've had and close ties and things that really bind people together. I could name you quite a few that are in the Air Force that we've had, and people that I've worked with through these commissions and through local politics. But Hill Air Force has been kind of a center point to a lot of that. AK: So, as you mentioned that you felt like, with BRAC 2005, you weren't as concerned with base closure, but you were more concerned with creating jobs? JS: I've always kind of been of the philosophy that you're either growing or you're retreating. You're either on one side or the other. As we started through this 12 process, we recognized what an amazing economic engine Hill Air Force Base is. So, it becomes not just keeping the base open and doing landing gears, but it becomes becoming the center point of the F-35 program, or it becomes keeping the Warthog or the A-10 program. It becomes continuing to do the repair work on the F-16, and it becomes the engineering defense point of our country. It becomes what Northrup Grumman is doing now with thousands of new jobs to northern Utah and building an entire campus on one side, it's an Air Force museum on the other side that caused people to come here. As I work with the state, I've had opportunity, and I think it was because of some of the things we did with the BRAC and beyond. I’ve had opportunity to kind of be the military go-to guy in the Senate. If we have anything involving Hill Air Force Base, the Senate, Northrop Grumman, move the museum. I'm kind of in the middle of that because of my association with the base over 20 years. We've just got a real gem here and we just need to make sure it stays polished. They bring such incredible people to us to live here and to work here, and I think it makes us a better community. AK: Absolutely. In my research, I had read something about the military installations partnership bill. Can you tell me a little bit about what that was and the importance of that? JS: I had left the mayor's office, and I was working with the board of trustees at Weber State. Governor Huntsman put me on that board, and several other things with the planning of the state of Utah—Vision Utah and places like that. I think it was 2008. I'd been out of the mayor's office two or three years, and they put 13 together a group, our local legislators, and they ran what they call a Military Installation Development Authority. We had a very bright gentleman on the base and a good friend named Jim Sutton. We had so much ground up around the base, so much real estate that was not being used. So, they put together this MIDA, the installation authority, and they build it around what we call an enhanced use lease program. The enhanced use lease is what you see going on west of Hill Air Force Base right now, and that's what you see going on with Northrop Grumman. But there’s about 600 acres down the west side of Hill Air Force Base. It starts right here, just north of base housing, and it goes clear through Davis and Weber County, and to the end of the base over just north of the museum. Anyway, as we put this together in 2010, the people that had really structured a lot of this left office, and I ended up in the state Senate. I picked this up as one of my batons I got to carry, and I have ran literally Military Installation Development Authority since 2010 every year. I think this is my 12th year in the Legislature, because I went in on the front of a term. I served at that session, but I wasn't elected, I was appointed by the governor. It's been a phenomenal thing to watch grow and take place, and you can see what's going on on the west side of the base. But we took that 600 acres. The federal government has given it to us, and almost anything going on there is now on the state tax rolls. So, we've had opportunity to build everything going on. You're going to see a lot of activity up there real quickly, because we're going to tear down the old railroad shops now. 14 That will be a MIDA project, and we're going to build another interchange there for the service of western side of Davis County. Northrop Grumman has come on, and we've actually worked through and got them their land and provided the experience they needed as far as getting permits and everything. They're building an entire campus. They’re putting $500 million of their own money into that project. I mean, the state of Utah will look for partners all day, and we can't think of anyone better than the US Air Force, the Northrop Grumman project, and others that are up there. MIDA went down and were actually the driving force that allowed the NSA building to go in down on Camp Williams. NSA, during the recession, we had a billion six project going down in Utah County, along with some others that kind of kept our construction economy floating through the ‘08, ‘09, ‘10 process. But that's been a really good thing for the state of Utah. Now there's a military retreat being built, and the military has five or six of those around the world, and there's a new one being built. We're in the process of building that up in the Park City area right now, Heber Valley. So, those are incredible projects to be able to work and be part of and help bring the community together. The reason MIDA has worked is because the board of directors includes a former mayor of Layton, who I won't name. It's the mayor of Clearfield. It's the mayor of Roy. It's the mayor of Riverdale. Then as we expand into Heber Valley, it's county commissioners from that area. So, everyone has a vested interest in the success of MIDA, and it's been a great process. For some of us that have 15 been there a long time and spent a lot of time in politics, they are kind of legacy projects for us. AK: Because of the general impact on Utah? JS: Just because of the impact and what they had the ability to do. We have really done it with very little money. But this isn't anything—we've done this for Silicon Slopes. We're in the process of doing it with whatever takes place down at the Utah State Prison. We put money into the inland port process that we're working on right now. We put a little money over the years, not a tremendous amount, but we put money into MIDA. MIDA’s involvement has been with things like helping build the West Gate, the Clearfield gate, and we helped with some new security on the base for them. We were in the process of redoing the 5600 interchange in Roy. But you know, a big beneficiary of that will be the Hill Air Force Base. We're trying to get 25,000 people on and off the base efficiently. So, those are the kind of things we have done. We've got a new gate going, and then one thing that we did is fund the moving of the museum. They've got to move the airplanes that are on the museum campus that are outside, and they're going to basically build kind of a canopy to put them under, and move them to a different spot where they do not restrict the Northrop Grumman campus. The state will pay for that. But when we look at all the benefit that we get from the military up here, and we look at all the benefit that we get from the defense contractors that work here, what we put in as a state is just a drop in the bucket. It's more of encouragement than anything else. 16 AK: I'm just curious, honestly. You mentioned a military retreat. Is that kind of like a ski resort, in a way, for military members? JS: It will be tied to Deer Valley. Probably in this case, it will be a hotel chain. The military owns a really nice golf course and some hotel rooms in Hawaii. They own some in Edelweiss, Germany. I think there's one in Florida. It's a place they can be with their family and they can have some R and R. It'll have some conference rooms, too, where they can bring people into a conference and put them in and have the facilities to take care of the conference. But they can have some R and R while they're here. They'll be able to stay an extra few days. What we've done goes back to Jim Hansen again. Most people don't know this, but the base used to have a facility like this, although it would only hold about 20 people, at Snow Basin. When Utah got the Olympics, we had to close it because the downhill was right in the middle of their property. As a trade—and it was a pretty archaic little hangout, you know—Jim Hansen, who was in Congress, made arrangements to trade with the Bureau of Land Management for a piece of property up at Park City, and he got them 20 acres. That ground has since been transferred to MIDA. Then MIDA has sold that to Park City, and then we will use that. We've used that as the base for a hotel that the military will be able to use at a discounted rate. We put that together—I don’t know, it's been a lot slower package. I know that in my time as mayor, this was being discussed in the early ‘90s. I promised several members of the military that have come here that I'm not going to leave 17 politics until we get that hotel built. Now, we just started it, so I'm not sure that means I'm done or I'm in for one more term, but I plan on keeping that promise. It's been really interesting, but this will be a great asset for the military. They'll be able to bring people in here, have high-end meetings or low-end meetings whenever they want. We've kind of sold it to ‘em as a four-season. If you go to Florida, it's one season. Edelweiss Germany, I would imagine it would be kind of similar to what we'd have here. But what we want is a four-season resort where they can bike—it's up by Jordanelle Reservoir—you can boat, you can fish, you can ski, depending on the season that you're here. So, that's the idea behind it. AK: Utah's a good location for that. Well, I just have a couple more questions. I'm curious about how Utah has kind of positioned itself for the future, especially in the case of possible future BRAC rounds? JS: I really believe that Hill Air Force Base has moved into a position to where if there are future BRAC rounds, Hill may be looked at from a mission basis, but not from a base closure basis. In other words, can we take something that's happening at Hill and do it more efficient someplace else? Or can we take things that are being done elsewhere and move on the Hill for efficiency sake? But I think where Hill sits right now, they take care of all of our lighter fighter planes. So, those planes, they have to be maintained, and then all of the landing gear on all of the aircraft the Air Force was taking care at Hill is usually flown in and out daily. So, if you've got a real bad break and you're in Cairo, you're going to get your airplane fixed, probably, or your landing gear at least 18 fixed. They've got spare parts that they'll move around, but it's a very complicated system. Then I think with what's going on with our strategic missiles, with the new Northrop Grumman contract and so forth, there's a lot of things are pretty logical, the way Hill's important. That bombing range is one of them. They've got miles that they can go out there and fly. We've actually expanded that with the state legislature and through Rob Bishop's office. Senator Hatch helped with that one. But they can't duplicate that. You can't go do that any place in the world right now—or, I don't know about in the world, but you can't do it in the US, because the environment. We would never get it through the environmental process. So, I don't think it's something that you could close now. Besides that, they've got that down to three bases. They've got the big bombers and stuff that go into Tinker in Oklahoma, then they’ve got the cargo and so forth that goes to Georgia, and the lighter aircraft here. I don't think you could expand any of the three bases to absorb one of the others. I think that's the key to what we've done and that's the key to where we are right now. AK: Do you feel like BRAC kind of left a legacy on the way that we in Utah think about our military installations? JS: I think sometimes you don't realize how important something is until you can see where you may not have it anymore. I think BRAC, because of the hard work of a lot of people, was turned from a negative to a positive. I think we need to thank a gentleman by the name of Jim Hansen for generations, just because of what he did on this. He actually became a BRAC commissioner in the 2005 round. He 19 was one of the commissioners. I think we had about 85-job job change in that process is all. But I think Jim did an amazing job for us. He was a leader of the pack, and the BDO is the pack. But I think you're absolutely right. I think it's changed the history of Utah. AK: I have just one more question, but did you want to ask anything? SL: So, I'm going to ask one of your questions. Did you see after '95, where McClellan and Kelly both closed and a lot of those workers were coming to Utah, did you see an impact on Layton specifically, with an influx of workers? JS: No, I didn't. We had a pretty steady growth when I went in the mayor's office in Layton City. When I went on the City Council in the late ‘70s, Layton City was 18,000 people, and it didn't take very long through an annexation and through that just regular growth that was going on in the community. I don't know what the impact from those jobs was. I know that I went down and actually talked to some groups about the positive side of moving to Utah. We tried to market not just a community, but the entire community. If you look at Hill Air Force Base, I mean you can go around Davis and Weber County and you can find some of our older subdivisions are directly tied to the construction of Hill Air Force Base: Washington Terrace, Sunset, and then three or four different communities in Layton. I don’t know how many people really actually moved. There was a lot of attrition taking place, and we were starting to take care of a lot of efficiencies in what we did. Computers were starting to take over the world. I don't know how many people moved, but I know our population growth in Layton was very, very 20 sturdy. We were building. There were times we were building five-, six-hundred single-family homes a year, plus some multifamily. That was pretty constant all through the time I was mayor. That's quite a few homes when you look at it. It’s I'm sure still happening today, but I'm sure there's a lot of homes being purchased in Layton on a regular basis. They're coming with what's going on in Hill Air Force Base today. It's a piece of this real positive growth that we have. SL: Were you involved with the moving of the private school that was encroaching on the runway? JS: We didn’t have a private school; we had a public school. I was in it clear up past my ears. It was a couple of really strange events. The school district owned a piece of property that would have been considered on the edge of the flight path. They were trying to get a school built. We had some property owners up on the northeast corner of the community, clear up by the Weber Basin water plant. There was a piece of ground that we had encouraged the district to buy up there, and when they started to develop, we realized that—and we had some very antagonistic property owners up on the east side. I remember particularly one conversation one afternoon with Jim Hansen. Jim and I have been friends for a lot of years. Jim called me from Washington, and he said, "If you allow the school to be built that close to the base," he says "that will be a nail in the coffin of Hill Air Force Base." That's a direct quote. He said, "So what are you going to do about it?" I said, "Jim, we're going into a meeting tonight, and we've come up with some ways that we can creatively use some easements." We had this piece of 21 ground in the middle that wasn't in Layton City, it was just in the middle with Davis County all around it. We needed to get utilities across this property to build that school. We needed sewer water and roads. I said, "We think we've come up with a way we're going to do this." So, we made that decision that night. But anyway, Jim says, "So, what are you telling me?" I says, "I'm telling you that I'll go ahead and take care of this here in Layton. You run Washington and let's talk tomorrow." Jim called me the next day, and we did what we said we were going to do. But that was a memorable conversation. I thought it was kind of cool to be able to tell a U.S. congressman to keep his business in Washington and leave me alone. We went ahead and rezoned the school. The school built up where they are now, and then we made arrangements with the district and the city bought that property and actually turned it into a park. So, I mean, there's a lot of these things that evolve. You know, when decisions are made they evolve. The district, to their credit, they pretty well understood. They were pushing the city hard to make a decision. I think they found they had the right linchpin to make that work, and they had the right pressure point to make us change. So, that's what took place. AK: I just have one more question: how do you feel that the community can continue to support Hill Air Force Base and our other military installations? JS: Well, when the community goes out and builds a wall to the Vietnam veterans like we have down in the Layton City parks—but it isn't just Layton, this is all of the communities of Davis County and Weber County. They recognize the 22 importance we have there. I think part of it’s to welcome all these new people that have to come here with open arms and make sure that we can accommodate with the type of infrastructure that we need. Make sure that we got clean water for them and make sure that we've got roadways that aren’t impassable. I think we can continue doing what we're doing, you know, invite them to help coach the soccer team, and invite them to help be part of that. I put lots of people that had moved here on planning commissions when I was mayor. Make sure that they understand that this is a friendly place, have programs at the amphitheaters. I was speaking at the park one morning with Governor Olene Walker, and a plane flew over from Hill and she had to stop her speech. If you've ever been in the park or out here on the west side, sometimes about 10 o'clock in the morning, those planes come off, and they usually come in flights of four. Then you usually have the same thing in the afternoon if the prevailing wind is from the south. So, the second one comes over and she stopped her speech again. By the time she got number three, she was becoming a little bit perturbed over what was going on, and when the fourth one went over, you could tell she was a little disturbed. So, I stepped up to the microphone after her and I said, “Before I give the remarks I have here, I'd like to explain to the governor how you handle a talk in the park in Layton.” I said, “The first plane goes over and you solemnly look at it with respect. By the time the fourth plane goes over, you've got your hand over your heart and then you take credit for arranging a flyover.” 23 Probably one of the last things she did as governor is she came to Layton City one night and presented a plaque to a person for volunteerism. When she took the microphone, she looked up at me and smiled, and she says, “I will always remember the advice your mayor gave me on how to speak at a park in Layton City.” But I think those are the kind of things we need to get to, and I think we need to be really careful that, yeah, those planes fly over, and they make noise, and you need to kind of learn to be quiet. About three weeks ago someone said they would not come to my nursery anymore because it was too noisy. For some reason, every once in a while we'll get a fly day, and they’ll fly quite a few planes over us. But she said it was too noisy and she wasn't going to sacrifice her hearing for a pansy. I haven't done anything about that, but I will tell you, because of the loyalty to the Air Force in this area, I can build a whole advertising program around that. We went through a program this last year of the state and we took the military retirement pay, we took the income tax off of it. The reason we did that is we need those people here. If you are an airman and you come to the state of Utah and you work for eight years on Hill Air Force base, we need your skills when you retire. We need it a lot more than we need that money you're going to pay in retirement tax, because what they have is things that a lot of people in the state don't have. That is they have a skill when they retire that, again, we need, and one thing they really have is the ability to lead. For the most part, every one of them have been taught skills as they come up through the ranks. You know, 24 that isn't something that you normally can go hire a person with. If you start, if you hire young folks out of high school, you have to develop that in them, they don't just come to you with that in most cases. I've ran a lot of bills that treat our military, that do things for them. We've figured out how to get money into an air show that we can have every two years. I think it's amazing to come up and attend that and just spend time with it. I just think we need to show a real interest in what we have there. It's as big as Silicon Slopes and a lot more stable. AK: Thank you so much, we really appreciate it. JS: Thank you. 25 Alyssa Kammerman