By ED OFFLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

While regarded as one of the top two Army facilities in the United States and deemed safe from base closure, Fort Lewis faces a number of internal challenges, including recent Army initiatives to consider privatizing basic services, says Egan. Army planners say they want to do everything they can to save operating costs but worry about unpredictable impacts this might have on the quality of life and morale at the base.

An infantry officer for 27 years and garrison commander at the 83,000-acre Army base, Egan is responsible for the management of a military community of 23,000 full-time residents and another 35,000 commuters who pass through the post gates each day, of whom about 3,000 live across I-5 in Lakewood.

Fort Lewis five years ago saw its population jump by 5,000 military personnel and another 7,000 family members when the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division was transferred intact to the Pierce County post, Egan says.

Harrison and the Lakewood City Council are grappling with a much larger invasion: a projected increase in the city population by 30,000 in the next two decades. At the same time they are drafting a comprehensive development plan mandated by the state, preparing an economic development plan for job creation and struggling for solutions to the pockets of poverty, crime and blight that still tarnish the city's reputation.