BRAC holds final hearing, no mention of R.I. Arsenal

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission held it's final hearing Saturday in which it focused on broad themes with no specific mention of the Rock Island Arsenal.

In more than three months of hearings by the panel, they completed 182 visits to 173 bases, received more than 80,000 e-mails and over a half million letters, and logged more than 8 million visits to their website.

The next step in the process is for the 9 member panel to vote on the proposals. This is expected to take place over 4 days and nights.

After that process, the final list will be sent to the president by September 8th. Then Bush has the option to make changes to the list and send it back to the commission for a final review. After that, Bush and the Congress must decide up or down whether to accept the bill or kill it entirely.

The proposed net loss of 1,705 jobs at the R.I. Arsenal are at stake.