By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

BRUNSWICK – While people at either end of Maine celebrated victories for rescued military installations in Limestone and Kittery, leaders Thursday began planning Brunswick’s comeback.

Only one day after Brunswick Naval Air Station was targeted for closure, Gov. John Baldacci signed a new executive order creating the Maine Office of Economic Redevelopment and Re-employment.

The new office is aimed at helping workers who will be hurt by the closure and finding commercial development for the targeted base.

Meanwhile, Sen. Olympia Snowe announced plans aimed at marshaling “the weight and might of the federal government” behind Brunswick.

Snowe pledged to add an amendment to the upcoming Defense Authorization Bill that would give the base to the community when the Navy is done with it. Without the legislation, Brunswick would have to buy the property from the federal government at fair market value. Snowe called the current law “ridiculous.”

“It’s bad enough that the community has to absorb the loss of thousands of jobs,” Snowe said. “They shouldn’t have to buy it, too.”

The 3,220-acre base property is situated in the middle of Brunswick, with land that reaches to the ocean. It includes side-by-side 8,000-foot runways, hangars, offices, a still-under-construction air traffic control tower, 1,500 homes and its own golf course.

As early as 2007, the Navy may begin reassigning people to other bases. Capt. George Womack, who commands the base, said Wednesday that the closure will likely take three to five years to complete.

The wake will be formidable.

The base currently employs 2,978 full-time military personnel, all of whom will be reassigned. Another 581 civilians work for the base, according to numbers released Thursday by local Navy officials.

Together, base employees earn more than $125 million in salaries, much of that spent locally. All of that money will disappear.

On Thursday morning, however, the shock of the previous day’s closure announcement was still fresh, Town Manager Donald Gerrish said.

“I think everybody needs to take a little breather,” he said. “Then, we’ll get back to work.”

That work must begin next week, Gerrish said.

Within three months, Brunswick and Topsham hope to form a local redevelopment authority, aimed at drawing federal grant money needed to resell the base to commercial and residential investors.

Much of the federal money, perhaps as much as $1 million, will come from the Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment. Maine has already received some federal money to aid Brunswick, outlined in the governor’s order.

The state Department of Labor has received a $1 million National Emergency Grant to begin planning for the job changes. Next month, the state will ask for another $10 million, aimed at training and schooling for displaced workers at the Brunswick base.

Snowe said money may also be available for any environmental cleanup needed at the base, a Superfund site where millions have already been spent. However, her priority is transferring the military property to the community, something she helped accomplish in Limestone when Loring Air Force Base closed in 1993.

In Brunswick, the transfer seems even more logical, since much of the base property was originally owned by the town. It was the town commons, a sliver of which remains outside the western border of the base.

“This is not where we wanted to be today,” Snowe said, still angry by the closure commission’s decision to shut down the Navy base.

On Thursday, she continued to question the decision, saying that the Pentagon will soon miss its last active-duty airfield in the Northeast.

Gerrish said he, too, remains angry. But he tries to put it aside.

“The decision has been made,” he said. “Let’s move forward.”

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