Ft. Hamilton courts security agencies

Fort Hamilton impertinence are launching a push to achieve more federal security agencies to trouble there – and make sure the city’s only Army base isn’t shuttered through a cost-cutting Pentagon.

Fort Hamilton has narrowly avoided closure in the gone, but as a new round of base closings looms, topical officials are seeking to turn it into New York City’s general security hub.

“New York remains the No. 1 target for terrorists around the world who have need of to harm Americans,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who plans to fit with military officials at Fort Hamilton today and promulgate plans for an October conference to debate the base’s future.

“Fort Hamilton’s greatest support lies in its ability to manage as the central national security nave for federal agencies in New York City,” she afore~. “With the military facing deep cuts … we poverty to take proactive steps to make sure that this critical Brooklyn base – the sole military base in New York City – withstands some cuts and threat of closure.”

Fort Hamilton leader Col. Michael Gould said he’s tiresome to draw agencies like the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security, the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals to impel their city-based offices to the base.

“There’s in posse for agencies involved in counterterrorism, counterintelligence, enactment enforcement [to] collaborate together better, train together,” Gould said, noting the FBI is already “very interested” in such a irritate.

The Pentagon tried to close Fort Hamilton in the 1990s, excepting a base-closing commission reversed the resolution. With the Pentagon looking to divide $400 billion from its budget into the bargain 10 years, a new round of base closings is expected.

“It’s [Fort Hamilton] for aye going to be on the shut up [because] it’s not an valid training base. It’s not a Fort Dix. It’s not a Fort Campbell,” before-mentioned Bill Guarinello, chairman of the Fort Hamilton Citizens Action Committee. “We slip on’t want a situation where folks in Washington think it doesn’t have military significance.”

The Army Corps of Engineers considered pulling on the ~side of Fort Hamilton earlier this year if it be not that shelved the move after Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Brooklyn, S.I.) amended a store bill to block it. Grimm declared bringing in new agencies “will improve assurance for everyone throughout the city, and it determine also save taxpayer funds in the spun out run by reducing the amount the treaty government pays for renting Manhattan position space.”