Ventura Port District Chief Resigns

Ventura Port District General Manager Ed Wohlenberg has resigned his $84,660-a-year job, just days after port commissioners put him on leave.

The Board of Port Commissioners announced Wohlenberg’s resignation Wednesday night after a closed session preceding its monthly meeting. He will remain on paid leave until April 8.

Board Chairman Gary Jacobs would not say why Wohlenberg resigned. Wohlenberg, who did not attend the meeting, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Last week the five-member board decided to suspend Wohlenberg for two weeks, saying only it was “for personal reasons.”

A longtime Bay Area city administrator, Wohlenberg, 59, was hired as the port district’s general manager in 1996, inheriting an agency that had declared bankruptcy three years before.

As general manager, Wohlenberg supervised the port district’s 15-member operation, which includes its maintenance staff and the Harbor Patrol. He was also the chief financial officer of two port corporations and landlord to numerous harbor tenants.

“Mr. Wohlenberg was extremely helpful to us during these three years,” Jacobs said. “It was his ideas that resulted in us coming out of the bankruptcy in the fashion that we did. . . . He worked very hard for the district, worked many hours.”

Port commissioners last fall rewarded Wohlenberg’s efforts with an $8,000 bonus.

With Wohlenberg’s departure, day-to-day operations are being overseen by the port district’s departmental managers. Jacobs said the board has not set a timetable for finding a new general manager.

“This has moved fairly quickly,” he said. “This wasn’t part of a long-term plan.”