New Course Charted for Port District

It is a popular spot for sport fishing, sun soaking and a Sunday afternoon stroll.

And now, Ventura Harbor has become the backdrop for a stormy political struggle between city and harbor officials, who are at odds over who should lead the bankrupt Ventura Port District into calmer waters.

Today, the City Council is scheduled to appoint three new commissioners to the port district’s five-member panel.

The appointments present a rare opportunity for council members to seat a new board majority and change the direction of an agency that controls 250 acres of valuable oceanfront property.

“I think some change is desperately needed,” Councilman Gary Tuttle said. “This is an important part of our community and it is financially in trouble.”

But some district officials worry that the council’s actions could exacerbate problems by stacking the board with appointees who know little about the port district’s complex legal and maritime affairs.

“The port district is in trouble because of the poor appointees in the past,” said Commissioner Robert “Nick” Starr, who will not be reappointed when his term expires this month.

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“I don’t think they need fresh faces,” Starr said. “I think they need some talented people.”

Members of the city’s appointments committee say they have picked a trio of professionals who will bring a positive mix to the board.

Out of a field of 10 applicants, they chose hospital administrator Monty Clark, attorney Jean Getchell Bush and county planner Todd Collart, a former councilman.

The committee also recommended that Starr not be reappointed to a second term in a 2-1 vote, with Councilman Jim Monahan dissenting.

Monahan rallied for Starr’s reappointment, saying the board needed the continuity of three senior members. Two other commissioners resigned earlier this year. But other council members said the board needs a change.

“He has been there for four years and problems are ongoing,” said Councilman Steve Bennett, a member of the appointments committee.

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Starr said he asked Monahan to withdraw his application after it became apparent that he did not have the support of the committee.

“I told him I did not feel it was a level playing field,” Starr said, adding that he did not want to serve on a board with people he alleges are “political cronies.”

“This may sound arrogant, but I think the job needs me, I don’t need the job,” Starr said. “They don’t want me, I don’t want to be there.”

Starr’s appointment four years ago caused an uproar when officials found out he had been convicted of bribe-taking while serving as a Los Angeles harbor commissioner in the mid-1960s. The case was later overturned on appeal.

If appointed tonight, Clark, Bush and Collart will inherit a long list of problems and opportunities.

They would take over a bankrupt agency struggling to regain its financial footing and facing the possibility of court-ordered debt payments.

But they would also inherit Ventura Harbor Village, one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations, and vast acres of prime undeveloped land that could be the key to the district’s financial viability. Already, the port district has advanced proposals for new homes or a convention center on 20 acres near the mouth of the harbor.

Perhaps most important, however, the new appointees would be asked to select a new general manager to run the day-to-day operation of the port district.

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General Manager Richard Parsons resigned last November. But his contract has been extended three times since then as the search for a new director drags on.

After nearly six months, the board cannot agree on a candidate, which has frustrated both port commissioners and city leaders.

“The board has been paralyzed in hiring a manager because it is split,” Bennett said. “Everything is just on hold.”

Commissioner Gary Jacobs agrees, and said the new appointments should put an end to the standoff.

“I think there was a polarization on the board,” he said. “I would hope that the main thing is, that is over.”

To the average Ventura resident, the tussle over a port district seat may seem strange. Commissioners receive no pay, no benefits, but are obligated to attend monthly meetings and spend long hours tackling a wide range of issues, such as harbor dredging and the intricacies of bankruptcy law.

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But it didn’t start that way.

The City Council set up the port district more than 40 years ago and appointed a board of commissioners to four-year terms to issue bonds for the construction of Ventura Harbor.

By the late 1960s, boaters who used to haul their crafts by trailer to launch from the beach occupied 1,800 slips at the new harbor, which was created out of 250 acres of swampland at a cost of $4.75 million.

But in February 1969, flood waters crested the nearby Santa Clara River and smashed the new harbor, sending the wreckage of 100 boats out to sea.

The harbor struggled to rebuild during the next decade, only to be hit in the mid-1980s with another crushing blow, and the bruises are still evident today.

In 1979, the port district signed a deal with developer Ocean Services Corp. to build a shopping center and other attractions at the harbor. In 1987, Ocean Services filed for bankruptcy.

Over the next six years, banks foreclosed, merchants complained, and plans to sell part of Ventura Harbor Village fell through. Ocean Services filed suit charging that the port district did not act in good faith in negotiations over the shopping center.

The developer won the case and an appeals court eventually upheld a $15.6-million judgment against the district. In August 1993, the financially strapped district filed for bankruptcy, the first public agency in Ventura County ever to do so.

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Since then, the district has started to recover. Just before the bankruptcy, the agency bought the remaining half of Ventura Harbor Village, which now has a 97% occupancy rate with more than 40 restaurants and shops.

“The reality, despite all this turmoil, is I don’t think there has been any significant adverse affect on operations,” General Manager Parsons said.

But the bankruptcy still lingers, and city leaders are eager to see that albatross cast off.

“They have got to hire a general manager and they have to deal with the whole bankruptcy question,” Bennett said.

Councilman Ray Di Guilio said a new board majority can bring a fresh perspective to help deal with these issues.

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“We need to get new fresh ideas into the mix that do not weigh us down from past problems,” he said.

But district officials say the port’s problems cannot be whisked away by simply a change in leadership.

“The problem is councilmen say that and they react without knowing much about the situation, they don’t understand it,” Parsons said. “Getting new blood down there isn’t going to change it, because it isn’t going to make money come out of thin air.”

Commissioner Jacobs, one of the two remaining board members, said all new appointees come in eager to slay the district’s dragon. But it is not that easy.

“It is certainly a problem that we would certainly like to resolve,” he said. “But we have to resolve it in a way that the harbor can still survive. . . . We have to deal with it, and we are.”

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The recommended appointees are eager to take a swing at the port’s problems, nonetheless, and they are optimistic about the harbor’s future.

“You look at it in cold, hard terms, it looks like a liability,” Collart said. “But clearly there are not many cities that have their own harbor. It is a great asset.”