$9.5 Million of Ventura’s Money Sits Idle in Bank : Finance: It was borrowed eight years ago to build a convention center that voters rejected. Its interest now helps balance the city budget.

Eight years after Ventura borrowed $9.5 million for a convention center--and six years after voters rejected the center in a citywide referendum--the money sits unused in a bank account while other city projects go begging for funds.

Officials at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, where the convention center was to be built, say the city would break its promise if council members pledged the money to any other purpose.

But the current council has different plans for the tantalizingly available sum. One speaks of a minor league baseball stadium. Another dreams of a marine center at the harbor. A third would leave the account intact and earning $500,000 a year in interest for the general fund, money the city has come to count on to balance the annual budget.

Such talk makes Dennis Orrock, vice president of the fairgrounds’ board of directors, more than a little frustrated.

“For this council to even think of taking this money for another use is a breach of commitment between the two agencies,” said Orrock, who served as Ventura’s mayor when the city first issued the bonds and is now hard at work on resurrecting the convention center plan.

But some council members say the fairgrounds has no claim on Ventura’s bank account.

“Whose promise are they talking about?” Councilman Gary Tuttle asked. “Not my promise.”

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The council originally issued bonds for a host of projects in the mid-1980s, including water, sewer and storm drain improvements, officials said. Because the city could not issue public bonds for a private project, some of that money was subsequently shuffled between accounts to raise cash for a multi-event center at Seaside Park.

The project soon encountered bitter opposition, however, from residents who said a convention center would destroy the small-town feel of the County Fair.

So those involved took the issue to the voters in the form of two ballot referendums. One, which asked for support for general improvements at the fairgrounds, won handily. The other, which opposed the city’s lending money for construction of a convention center at the fairgrounds, won also, but by an even larger margin.

A perplexed council, reviewing the conflicting results, opted to drop the center proposal. Council members left the money they had raised in a special reserve account, and ordered that the interest it earns go straight into the city’s general fund.

The bonds the city floated were certificates of participation, by which Ventura puts some of its property up as collateral and repays the loan in the form of lease payments on the property. Since these were not general obligation bonds, the voters did not have to approve their issuance, city officials say.

To make the lease payments, the city also raised the hotel tax about eight years ago, from 7% to 10%, and the difference goes toward the bond debt, officials said. The extra money that the higher hotel tax has raised has varied over the years, from about $300,000 a year in the mid-1980s to $550,000 last year, officials said.

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Understandably, some local hotel owners would like to see the extra money they raise for Ventura spent on something that could bring in more tourist business--soon.

“You bet it’s frustrating,” Rod Houck, an owner of the Pierpont Inn, said of watching the money gather dust and interest in the bank. “I think they need to move on it and get something going. It’s long overdue.”

Everett Millais, Ventura’s director of community affairs, said politicians and residents have dreamed up ways to spend the money ever since the convention center proposal went down to defeat.

“Everything that comes through, it’s been, ‘Oh, well, the city has $9 million, and it can be used for all these various things,’ ” he said.

To date, no council has ever taken the plunge. But Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures thinks this may be the time.

“I would like to see us continue our progressive movement,” said Measures, who speaks frequently of trying to expedite decision-making at City Hall. “It’s really encouraging to see that we have a lot of opportunities.”

Measures pointed in particular to a marine center project and a proposal to build a minor league baseball stadium in Ventura.

The marine center is an idea proposed by Montecito designer Al Fiori, who envisions a $20-million, state-of-the-art, educational and entertainment center at the Ventura Harbor.

The minor league baseball stadium is an approximately $15-million project that Ventura is working on with Oxnard and Camarillo. Organizers have proposed situating the stadium near Ventura’s auto center, but the three cities are expected to split the building costs.

Measures and Councilman Gregory L. Carson say they hope to see the money spent within the next few years on a project to attract more tourism money. But city staff members warn there is a catch.

The interest that was at first a budget bonus, officials say, has become an operational necessity--the city now depends on the interest to make ends meet each June.

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“We’ve come to rely on that as a source of income,” said Terry Adelman, the city’s finance director. “Without it, either our revenues would have to increase by economic activity, or we would have to cut services. That definitely would be painful.”

For that reason alone, Councilmen Steve Bennett and Tuttle think Ventura should be cautious in spending the money.

“I certainly wouldn’t be disappointed if the city kept it making income,” Tuttle said.

But Councilman Jim Monahan, who served on the council with Orrock years ago, thinks Ventura cannot hold on to the money forever. The council made a pledge in the late 1980s, he says, and he, for one, is not about to break it.

“You don’t arbitrarily say, ‘Well, I have a better idea,’ ” he scoffed. “You honor your commitments to people.”