Partnerships between the Presidio of Monterey, Calif., and surrounding communities have saved the Army money and improved installation municipal services, said Col. Paul W. Fellinger Jr., garrison commander.The Monterey Model is one of the oldest public-public partnerships in the nation, dating back to 1998, Fellinger said.Fellinger and other Army and Monterey leaders spoke March 10, during the Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare Hot Topic panel, "Partnerships – Opportunities for Cost Savings/Avoidance and Increased Efficiencies."The partnerships Fellinger referred to deal with municipal services: landscaping, energy, water, road maintenance, sewer, electric, fire and so forth; with the city providing the services to the installation and the Army picking up the cost.The Presidio is an Army installation, its main tenant is the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, or DLIFLC, which teaches foreign languages to service members and other government personnel.The Army now spends about $7 million annually on municipal services from Monterey to support the installation, said retired Col. Danial D. Pick, Monterey’s deputy city manager of plans and public works.A recent audit of the model indicates 22 percent annual savings from what it would normally cost the installation to do on its own. "That’s pretty significant. The model works purely in terms of cost" alone, Pick said.It is about more than just the money though; it is about building trust and inspiring innovation, he said, providing some examples.When DLIFLC suddenly got a huge influx of students, the heating system could not generate enough power to produce the hot water needed for the shower system, he said. At that time, last year, Pick was the commander of DLIFLC.The cost to build a larger hot-water heating system was "astronomical," he said.So the garrison presented the problem to the city, which then engineered a replacement coil for the existing hot water tanks that was larger and would heat the water more quickly at a fraction of the cost to replace the system.Then, later in the year when Pick became deputy city manager, the installation switched over to new touch identification cards and base access controls were ordered.To make a long story short, the controls would result in significant traffic congestion affecting not just the post but the local community.Pick and Fellinger talked and "his security team and our traffic engineers holistically analyzed traffic patterns," Pick said.Adding, "Based on their analysis and recommendations, we did everything from changing the signaling pattern in the city to adjusting lanes and access to the post."That mitigated what could have been a problem for the post and the community."That’s what a close relationship built on trust can produce," Pick said.Fellinger had his own Monterey Model example to relate.About six weeks ago, Monterey experienced significant rainfall. A storm drain clogged, causing significant flooding in the city and the potential for water contamination, he said, adding that the city is downhill from the installation.The problem was so acute that Fellinger and his staff, flashlights in hand, went down to inspect the problem in the middle of the night.When they got there, two city vacuum trucks were there, one of them sucking debris out of the drainage, he said. The other had broken down.That quick action by the city "is what the partnership is all about. It’s so much more than a contract. The city is dedicated to taking care of us as much as they do their own residents," Fellinger said.He empathizes with garrison commanders, who worry about "losing their identity and giving away powers, but our relationship with the city of Monterey does none of that," he said.Fred Meurer, who retired from the Army and later became the Monterey city manager, said public-public partnerships are able to deliver services at lower cost and more efficiently because they are able to bundle contracts between the installation and its surrounding communities.Ivan G. Bolden, chief of Army privatization and partnerships for the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Installation Management, said the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, Section 331, authorizes the military services to enter into intergovernmental support agreements for installation support services – public-public partnerships.