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The Georgia Military Affairs Committee met this morning in Albany to discussion ways of better preparing Georgia’s Military Bases for the next round of base closures.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission, commonly known as BRAC, has been delegated the task of closing unnecessary military bases since 1989. There has been 5 rounds of BRAC with the most recent occurring in 2005. In that round, 2 Georgian Military bases were closed.

Closures to the bases affect more then just the military. Bases become a vital part of the local economy, and when bases close the whole area tends to suffer.

While there currently is not another round of BRAC planned, if we fix our bases problems now, they have a better chance at staying open in the future.

President and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Chris Clark says,  "After the last round of BRAC we were told what some of the deficiencies were at some of our bases so we've spent the last several years and will spend the next, however many it takes, to deal with those issues so they're not on the table and they're not a negative in the column when were working against other states and other bases next time around."

On the list of things that need to be fixed is an encroachment issue at Robbins Air Force Base, and widening the part of Rt. 133 that connects the Marine Corp Logistics Base to interstate 75.