I’m grateful to the WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES providing coverage of my study, and would like to add some further commentary on the article and the comments. 

With respect to the article:
* I didn’t contact Mike Welding about the benefits of the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island (NASWI) because his information is, as he notes, “well known.”  It’s also obsolete.  The 2004 study he cites attributing 85% of Whidbey Island’s economy to the military was probably wrong in 2004, but it’s certainly wrong today.  The Navy is responsible for 20% of the jobs on the Island, not 85%.
* I also give these studies their due in my report.  What’s odd about these studies, however, is that they focused 100% on benefits of the NASWI and did no analysis whatsoever of the costs.  A cost-benefit analysis without the “cost” side of the picture misinforms public policy—and that was what my study sought to remedy.
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