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By Commander Michael R. Adams, U.S. Coast Guard
Life in the big city—it’s not for the Coast Guard
For no good reason (and despite many bad ones) the Coast Guard continues to maintain district offices in major metropolitan areas that subject our people to horrible housing prices, terrible traffic jams, and outrageous overcrowding. Boston, Long Beach, Miami, and Honolulu all may be sophisticated meccas for money-makers, but for the average Coast Guardsman they offer only poverty and pressure.
How has this come to pass? The Coast Guard, not surprisingly, keeps most of its forces on the coasts. The early revenue cutters were home-ported in places where they could get supplies, general chandlery, and recruits— in major shipping ports. Likewise, the Steamboat Inspection Service had to have its offices located where the steamboats were—major shipping ports. And even though the Life-Saving Service stations were scattered all up and down the coasts, centralization caused the service’s headquarters inevitably to move into big cities with their advanced communications systems.
Thus when these organizations were melded into the Coast Guard, it was only logical that the various district commanders who had (and still have) operational control over nearly all forces within their geographical region establish headquarters in big cities.
The irony and the solution lies in that need for communications. The railroads, telegraphs, and postal services of days past that made these cities centers of communication are outmoded today. Computers, fax machines, and cellular telephones have put everybody in instant communication with everybody else no matter where they are (often to the chagrin of the commander in the field). The district commander in downtown Miami, for instance, can talk (or even send written correspondence) to a subordinate in Charleston, South Carolina (some 500 miles away), just as quickly as to a subordinate out on Miami Beach. Therefore, the district commander could, for purposes of controlling forces, just as well be located in Charleston as in Miami.
Even ignoring the communications criteria, we find that the other “traditional” reasons for district office locations are equally invalid on the eve of the 21st century.
The old Steamboat Inspection functions are carried out by marine safety offices, which, even when they are in the same cities as the district offices, are almost never colocated with them. The marine inspectors must remain where the shipping industry is; the district office need not.
The descendants of the old Revenue Marine (the service’s high- and medium-endurance cutters) must still be home-ported where supplies, chandleries, and repair services are available. Those ships, however, are no longer under the control of the district commanders (they have shifted to area commander control) and many of them are nowhere near district offices (witness the medium- endurance cutters in Cape May, New Jersey; Key West, Florida; New London, Connecticut; and Astoria, Oregon).
If locating these offices in major cities was only irrelevant (as it appears to be), there would be no cause to move them. But such location is actually counterproductive because we are placing real and exceptional financial burdens and unacceptable living standards on those personnel we assign to the district offices.
In mid-1989 the median price of a house in Boston was $183,000; in Long Beach/Los Angeles, $175,000; in Honolulu, $199,000. The total income of an average commander (18 years service, married, shore duty, maximum VHA [Variable Housing Allowance]) was less than $5,000 per month. That commander could therefore qualify for a maximum monthly mortgage payment of $1,400 (28% of income, the rate at which mortgages are resold). That translates into a house price (15% down payment) of $165,000. Now if the median commander cannot afford the median house, where is a first-hitch yeoman third class supposed to live?
Moreover, these places subject our people to the stress of rush hours, lack of parking (or dearly bought parking for which they are not compensated), and the inevitable inflation, insurance
rates, and crime that run rampant in modern metropolises.
The solution is for the service to do what it makes its personnel do periodically; move. The First District Office could be as well located in Rumney, New Hampshire, as in Boston; the Seventh District as well in Wauchula, Florida, as in Miami. Technology makes control from such places possible, concern for our people’s expenses and well-being make it desirable, and federal law and regulation make it obligatory. Yes, the Rural Development Act of 1972, a law, calls for all federal agencies to move to rural areas if they can and Executive Order 12512 (which has the force of law) calls for cost- effectiveness in locating agency offices. Rents (both for houses and office buildings) are much lower away from major cities and reductions in VHA compound the cost savings. The law and the Executive Order compel the Coast Guard to move.
In fact, the Coast Guard has already taken such actions. The Coast Guard Institute that creates and grades correspondence courses and advancement exams is located in Oklahoma City and the service’s Pay and Personnel Center is in Topeka. Moving the district offices to rural areas is not just a simplistic solution; it is a real, late-20th- century possibility.
The costs of relocating would be substantial but not insurmountable. We already spend considerable sums every year upgrading our technology; we could instead spend that money on installing the gear elsewhere. The even greater savings from VHA not paid out, the housing we would not have to build, the high lease prices we would not have to pay would help us recoup our outlays in short order. Moreover, our people would be happier and wealthier; they might even work better.
The celebration of our bicentennial can serve as a catalyst to counter the claim that the Coast Guard is “200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.” Let’s get out of town.
Commander Adams is stationed in Honolulu.
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Proceedings / October 1990