The Pentagon announced a 20 year plan that will save $48 billion dollars and cost the Great Lakes Naval base 2000 jobs. They employ 24,000 people at the base, so this is a reduction in force of 8%. If you recall Great Lakes in the early 90's emerged as the Navy's only consolidated training base in the country. This lost of nearly 2,000 good jobs to the county will be felt everywhere. I can think of 15-20 families who have people working at the base here in Round Lake that I know of. I am sure there are more that I don't know as well.
When Motorola closed in Harvard 4 years ago and 42 miles await least 3 families in my neighborhood who were directly affected, and countless more who also were affected throughout the Round Lake area so the impact of losing 2,000 jobs in the county will hit us here in Round Lake. That's a given.
Our elected officials are making the right noises right now about the potential closing, but its going to be difficult to prevent this from happening. But we need to try.
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