by KYW's Pat Loeb
Governor Ed Rendell says the state is dropping a plan to run the Willow Grove air base because the federal government has not lived up to its end of the deal.
The state managed to save the base after the Navy pulled out by creating a "Joint Interagency Installation." But Joan Nissley of the State Department of Military and Veterans Affairs says that hinged on the Pennsylvania Air National Guard's 111th Fighter Wing getting a flight mission from the Pentagon.
Instead, she says, the defense department has been taking away the wing's airplanes:
"We don't need the airfield, we don't need to take on that extra burden, the extra expense, so it makes more sense at this time to say we're not going to use the majority of the property."
Nissley says Pennsylvania will continue to use part of the base for National Guard and reserve troops but it's letting the federal government take the rest of it for whatever it chooses.
She says the state is disappointed the defense department didn't come through with a flight mission for the 111th.
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