Merchants Group Sues Harbor Owners : Ventura: Two top officers resign in protest. They say the action was filed without their knowledge.

A long-running controversy over the management of the Ventura Harbor escalated Tuesday with a lawsuit claiming that the harbor’s owners and their property managers have harassed shopkeepers, failed to build promised tourist attractions and neglected harbor area maintenance.

The lawsuit was filed by Ventura attorney Randolph E. Siple on behalf of the Ventura Harbor Village Merchants Assn. against the Ventura Port District and Great Western Bank, owners of the trouble-plagued shopping area.

But the legal action itself added a new element of controversy to the harbor issue when some merchants charged that it was filed without their knowledge and may not be legally valid.

Siple said he filed the suit after a vote last week by the officers of the 30-member merchants association to take the grievances to court. Both the president and vice president of the association said, however, that they were not told of any such meeting and have since resigned in protest.

“I would definitely question the legitimacy of the lawsuit,” said Jim Smith, owner of Ventura Dive and Sport and former vice president of the group.

The suit came just four days after a parallel action was filed by harbor tenant Francisco Rangel, owner of La Marina Cantina. Rangel, who is also represented by Siple, claims that the Port District and its property manager, Newman Properties, have tried to force him out of the Harbor Village because of his past complaints and because he is Mexican-American.

The owners of another Harbor Village tenant and Siple client, Berto’s Ristorante, have a similar lawsuit pending against Great Western.

Ventura Harbor Village has been mired in legal disputes almost since it was completed eight years ago. The original builder and operator, Ocean Services Corp., sued the Port District in 1984, alleging that the public agency had broken its contract by not dredging the harbor, raising the firm’s rent and blocking construction plans.

Last September, the builder won a $31.35-million judgment against the Port District, but it came three years after Ocean Services had filed for bankruptcy. The Harbor Village now belongs to the Port District and Great Western.

According to Siple, Ocean Services promised merchants that it would build several attractions, including an aquarium and a maritime museum, to draw people to Harbor Village. The suit claims that, as Ocean Services’ successors, the Port District and Great Western are obliged to honor the original landlord’s pledges.

“I have a hard time imagining that we could be held responsible for that,” said Richard Parsons, general manager of the Port District.

The suit also charges that the Port District, Newman Properties, Great Western and its agent, Royce Property Management Co., have harassed tenants, refused to account for money the shopkeepers pay into a Harbor Village promotion fund and failed to keep the center clean and in good repair. Parsons dismissed the claims as baseless.

The earlier lawsuit filed by Rangel, like the larger suit filed Tuesday, involves a long, complex history of disputes.

The restaurateur said he decided to sue after Newman Properties sent him the latest of seven or eight unlawful detainer notices--a kind of eviction proceeding that gives a tenant a certain number of days to correct a list of alleged wrongs or vacate the property.

He claimed that nothing came from most of the notices because the charges were groundless.

“I have satisfied everything in there, and I can prove it and they know it,” Rangel said.

The Port District and Newman Properties took an unlawful detainer suit against Rangel to court in 1988 and lost, Rangel said.

Parsons rejected as “utterly absurd” the claim that Rangel has been singled out for abuse because he is Latino.

Jim Trueworthy, owner of The Village Hatter store and one of the original Harbor Village tenants, declined to take sides. But he said the disputes don’t surprise him.

“The story of this place isn’t a newspaper article, it’s a master’s thesis,” he said.