The yarn I heard is; o leary approched the DoD several years ago, with the suggestion that they turn Bal' over to him to be his airport, and out of the kindness of his wallet, he would allow the IAC to remain there, for the present.
Apparently the DoD people were not too taken with his approch and declined to accept his kind offer.
However, I also heard that land was bought, in order to extend the runways to facilitate the conversion to a civ' airport, that land was supposedly, subsequently, sold when plans fell thru'.
But, is it a good idea, mayby, if certain conditions were imposed on civ' operators, concerning priorities and so forth.
But, Bal' is also a training base, not many of the joint civ'/mil bases are training bases, they are, to the main;operating centres.