THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 10, 1995 TAG: 9505100434
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Former Secretary of the Navy Sean O'Keefe told the City Council on Tuesday that Norfolk would have to work harder in the future to help Navy families adjust to the strain of longer deployments and other obligations.
In a meeting at City Hall, O'Keefe said deployments are likely to continue to stretch beyond the traditional six months. The Navy has to squeeze more work out of each sailor in an era where military budgets are expected to stay flat or decline, O'Keefe said.
Events ``suggest we are heading back to where we were 20 years ago, with long deployment times and accompanying morale problems,'' O'Keefe told Mayor Paul D. Fraim and other council members. ``We may not be as good neighbors as we were in the past.''
Long deployments typically hurt family life and strain families' relationships with the cities where they live, O'Keefe said.
O'Keefe was in town as part of the Marsh Commission, a high-level group formed by the Department of Defense as part of Vice President Al Gore's plan to ``reinvent government'' by making it more efficient and service-oriented.
The group arrived in Norfolk on Monday and is scheduled to leave today. The commission members are meeting with various military and community representatives. Their task is to find ways to improve the quality of life of military members and their families.
Besides O'Keefe, its members are retired Maj. Gen. Donald R. Garner, retired Maj. Gen. Matthew A. Zimmerman, retired Rear Adm. Roberta L. Hazard, and John O. Marsh, former Secretary of the Army. Marsh, the chairman, was absent from the meeting with City Council on Tuesday but was expected to arrive in town later Tuesday or early today.
The commission is particularly concerned with housing. Military housing around the country is deteriorating, commission members said. The commission is looking for ways to improve housing without the government building more directly.
O'Keefe praised the Navy Housing Welcome Center, at Janaf Shopping Center in Norfolk, as a model for the rest of the country. The center helps Navy personnel buy and sell homes, relocate, and helps with other housing services.
``If every community had that kind of attitude and program, we would be well on our way to solving that problem,'' O'Keefe said. ``The Norfolk model is one we will recommend be exported to other communities.''
Despite O'Keefe's concern with longer deployments, he agreed with Fraim that sailors may spend more time in Norfolk because the city is likely to become ``a mega base.''
The Navy is likely to do this because it can save money by concentrating services and functions in one place, O'Keefe said.
The former secretary also told the council that crime was a particular concern of Navy personnel. He recommended that city police work with knowledgeable military officials to control crime in neighborhoods where Navy personnel live. Fraim pointed out that Norfolk's crime rate has declined significantly over the past few years. ILLUSTRATION: Sean O'Keefe was secretary of the Navy in the final six months
of the Bush administration.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL NAVY by CNB