Port District Files Revised Debt Plan

In an effort to reach an agreement with its creditors, the Ventura Port District filed a revised debt adjustment plan Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara, according to General Manager Ed Wohlenberg.

The revised plan details how the financially strapped district intends to pay off its $22-million debt. The original plan was filed in January.

Wohlenberg said the biggest change in the revised plan is a new proposal that would generate more up-front cash for creditors.

Until now, Wohlenberg said, the heart of the repayment plan involved handing a share of the net operating revenues from the port district over to the creditors for the next 30 years.

But the creditors never accepted that, Wohlenberg said.

So over the past month the district spoke with bond financing experts, who suggested selling revenue bonds against the district’s incoming revenue stream. That would support about $15 million in bond issues, experts estimate. After the port paid off its other bills, that would leave about $7.8 million available to creditors, Wohlenberg said.

“That would result in a substantial cash payment to the creditors upfront,” Wohlenberg said.

He said the district will now need to persuade Judge Robin Riblett and the creditors that this is the best deal it can put together.

“We have analyzed and studied this thing to death,” Wohlenberg said. “All that can be taken out of this and still leave us a viable, functioning harbor district has been done.”

The port district--an independent government agency--went bankrupt when Ventura Group Ventures received a $15.7-million breach-of-contract court judgment against the district in 1991, after the district had pulled out of a development project.

The district owes $4 million to the California Department of Boating and Waterways for four loans issued since 1968, and $18 million to other creditors.

The district will next appear in Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara on Oct. 27.