The following is a partial transcript of Cathy Lewis's Oct. 19, 2006, interview with Rep. Thelma Drake on the talk show "HearSay" on WHRV-89.5 FM, made from the audio available at www.whro.org. The transcript begins at about time 20:37 and ends a bit after time 26:00 on the online recording.

At Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park -- a strictly nonpartisan organization -- we may not agree with every single thing the congresswoman said, but we admire her for engaging this issue forthrightly during the height of her election campaign. We also appreciate her strong interest in a good future for Fort Monroe, and we hope to have the privilege of continuing to work with her if she's re-elected. We would also appreciate the privilege of working with a Congressman Phil Kellam if he were to be elected, though in his own interview with Cathy Lewis, it was disappointing that he seemed to express such concern for Hampton's pretensions to Fort Monroe as a mere economic plum. Maybe we misunderstood. Whatever his position, if he'd like to submit an equal-time comment about Fort Monroe's future, we'd be glad to post it here in a spirit of constructive nonpartisanship.

Cathy Lewis: The other issue … has to do with the future of Fort Monroe, which is in your district, and as you know, there's a groundswell of folk in the community who are saying we'd really like to see a national park there, and they would like very much for you to say "Let's go ahead and ask the park service to make that a national park."

Rep. Drake: Cathy, I've met with them, we've had very good meetings, and I know exactly -- I mean they are very, very nice people who truly want to make sure that Fort Monroe is preserved, as all of us do. What a national treasure that we have sitting right here in our region. The issue of Fort Monroe is very different from most BRAC'ed [Base Realignment and Closure] bases, and that is the reverter clause that takes all of the historic site, and gives it back to the state when the Army leaves. So that's a little different for the Army and the Department of Defense; they are being very, very cautious in how they approach this and make sure that it's done right. What I've told the group who came to see me about Fort Monroe as a national park is since it is state-owned property I think it is very important that the state have this discussion, and the state ask. It'll cost about $500,000 for a study as to whether it should be a national park, so certainly for citizens, you'd like to accommodate them and do that, but the state, the Commonwealth of Virginia is the underlying owner of that property, and we'd like that request from them, that this is what they'd like us to look at. Now that there was a piece of legislation during this year's session that would have conveyed the fort to the city of Hampton. That was carried over for the year. So you have the vehicle sitting there to have discussions. I do know that there have been discussions with Speaker Howell. We've been encouraging that for some time now, to make sure citizens are meeting with state representatives, to make sure Hampton officials are meeting, and I now see and have heard that they're meeting with Governor Kaine. Part of what happened is when the whole BRAC process began, that it was Gov. Warner, and they were meeting with Governor Warner, and they really need to be meeting with Governor Kaine, Speaker Howell, I've encouraged them to talk to Riley Ingram who's the head of Cities, Counties and Towns, and to have these discussions. Now the Army is not going to leave for another five years; they will need their full six years to be able to be prepared at Fort Eustis to move the commands over there, so we've got a little bit of time, but we don't have much time; these discussions need to be made, and I want you to know the Department of Defense and the Army have been very impressed with the city of Hampton, that they have set up the FADA [Federal Area Development Authority] -- the General Assembly approved that prior to the BRAC last year, so they've been very impressed with what's been done so far by Hampton.

Cathy Lewis: You said that all the historic area is ceded to the state in this scenario. I had the impression that there was a confusion about jurisdiction, that it was a mixture of local, state, and federal …

Rep. Drake: There's three types of land there, there is Department of Defense land, there is land that's called accreted land -- because it's been accumulating, it's the accreted land, that's the one that's in question, who owns that -- and the third category of land is state-owned land that when it was deeded over to the Army to be Fort Monroe, it was done with the provision that if the Army ever left, it was to come back to the state in pristine condition.

Cathy Lewis: Would you like to see a park there?

Rep. Drake: The historic site and the state-owned site is a historic designation. It is going to remain -- the casemate museum, it's going to remain Fort Monroe, it's going to remain like it is. The real discussion is who owns it, who's required to maintain it -- a serious issue of about $15M a year. Now we do agree … one of the discussions, of course, and I think this is highest and best use, is some of the historic buildings to be leased out, for other uses, because it's very difficult for a building to be vacant. I saw that as a realtor, much better to have someone living in it, heat on, air conditioning on, than for a building to be vacant, nothing worse for a property than for that to happen. … And Cathy, if I can just add one thing about Fort Monroe, there is federal money that has been available to the city of Hampton, it's $540,000 for the studies that have taken place. … It's being reported out there that Hampton is footing the bill, which is not true, there has been certainly a tremendous amount of help from the federal government, and part of the BRAC law, that we not just dump this on the local government.

This partial transcript was contributed by Steve Corneliussen, who, being slow, took nearly two hours to prepare it by listening repeatedly to bits and snatches of the audio. If anybody cares to volunteer to make a similar transcript of the Fort Monroe portion of Cathy Lewis's interview with Rep. Bobby Scott on Oct. 17 or of the Fort Monroe portion of her interview with candidate Phil Kellam on Oct. 19, please contact Steve via the contact button on the home page, http://www.createfortmonroenationalpark.org/ . We'd like to post those as well. Thanks.