Mayor Bob Buckhorn Discusses Local Impact of the Florida Defense Alliance

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn spoke today at the Military Roundtable hosted by Governor Rick Scott. Mayor Buckhorn discussed the critical impact that the Florida Defense Alliance has on MacDill Air Force Base.

Mayor Buckhorn said, “…This issue of the Defense Alliance, I’m going to take you back very briefly 1991, 1993 and 1995, I was the assistant to the Mayor. I was the city’s point person when MacDill was on the base closure list. Many of you that have been around for a while will remember that. We were dead. We were on that list and very few cities get off that list once you get there. The economic impact of MacDill Air Force Base for the Tampa Bay area, it is our number one economic engine in the Tampa Bay area, followed only by Port Tampa Bay. If we were to lose that base and we almost lost that base partially because we didn’t have an organized strategy. We weren’t expecting BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] to come around. We didn’t anticipate that we would be on the list. There was no Defense Alliance to present a statewide effort in opposition to this. Keeping that Defense Alliance and keeping an organized effort in Washington, D.C. to fight for our bases. And I’m going to be parochial here to fight for MacDill in particular is hugely important… 
“…It is very very important to us and to the veterans that live in this area that we fight for the Defense Alliance and make sure that when MacDill is at risk, that we’re organized, that we’re funded and that we’re prepared to do battle…”