Have you ever watched Silence of the Lambs and in the back of your mind kind of rooted for Hannibal to do something horrible to some awful person, while at the same time kicking yourself for even thinking such a thought?

Or maybe wishing that Darth Vader would chop more than a hand off of his whiny son—before you realize you are supposed to root for the guy in white?

In much the same way, I find myself of two minds about the recent conversations at City Hall about trying to wring more money out of the Port of Long Beach in the form of increased transfers of port profits to the city.

First, as a resident of Long Beach, I feel that the port should be contributing more to the city. It is a city department after all and as part of City Hall, it should contribute as much as possible.

After all, the port is run by the city Harbor Department. Just like any citizen would expect revenue generated by any other city department, such as Public Works or Planning, to go toward the city budget woes, so too should the Harbor Department be required to pony up.

However, as a reporter who has covered the port for many years, I can identify several problems with this seemingly logical scenario.

One, City Hall has never shown a propensity for living within its means. Like an addict with no desire to break the cycle of fix and high, City Hall has never learned how to just say no. It's like the old Eddie Murphy stand-up joke punch line, "All I see I keep."

Worse, the port money isn’t even mandated to go to the city and the port transfer is not an automatic thing.

In the early 1980s Long Beach voters amended the city’s charter to allow City Hall to request 10 percent of the port’s annual profits. In 1995, facing a devastating one-two punch of a general decline in the national economy and the closure of the Long Beach Naval Station and Shipyard--a major source of direct and indirect jobs for the city--city officials began requesting the 10 percent to boost city revenues. The city council has made the request every year since.

And, while the port has the option to deny the City Hall request, it has never done so in the past (well, there was that one year port officials hinted they may not go along with the transfer, but a quick rebuke from City Hall about who the real bosses in the city were ended the thought of rebellion).

In my mind, it doesn't matter if the voters increase the port transfer amount to 15 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent of port annual profits, the City Hall suits, shaking with the tremors as they approach budget time, will be looking for their fix next year just like they have every year since 1995.

Another reason I am skeptical of increasing the port transfer is that it may be illegal depending on what the city wants to use the funds for.

You see, the port does not belong to Long Beach. The city operates it in trust for the state. The port actually belongs to all the citizens of California, according to a set of laws, court decisions and precedents known collectively as the Tidelands Trust Act.

Long ago, the state realized that if it did not do something, commercial interests would eventually build ports on every inch of coast. However, the state also recognized the importance of having commercial ports. So as part of a compromise the state essentially said that all the existing ports could remain, but no new ports could be built. In return, the existing ports would be allowed to expand and grow as long as they operated in the interests of all the citizens of California. Part of this agreement defined what port-generated funds could be used for. These include things like shipping, promotion of commerce, tourism, maritime recreation, fishing, and several other things.

However, the port-generated monies could only be used in the Tidelands area, basically the average mean high tide line, as it existed in 1935 when the core portions of the Tidelands Trust Act were approved. In Long Beach, this means that port-generated funds can only be spent within an area south of a demarcation line that is basically Ocean Boulevard.

Now, over the years, the allowed uses of Tidelands funds have evolved to include such things as paying for the Convention Center, allowing port officials to host events away from the port as long as they promote commerce, and paying for police and fire services within the Tidelands area.

The way the port transfer sidesteps the whole Tidelands restriction is by offsetting normal General Fund expenditures within the Tidelands area with the port transfer monies. For example, the port transfer funds pay for police service within the Tidelands area and the city does not have to allocate General Fund revenue for said officers.

A voter referendum further increasing the port transfer amount will not change any of this. The city will only be able to use the offsetting mechanism, except in the case of new construction or redevelopment in the tidelands area. It would require a change in state law to allow use of port funds outside the Tidelands area.

In addition, a voter-approved transfer increase may not even help the General Fund.

The problem is, there is a finite amount of things to spend money on within the Tidelands area. So even if the voters increase the amount of port transfer, they may actually face a situation where the port money winds up gathering in the Tidelands fund without being used. And no matter what the city does, these funds can never be used outside the Tidelands. I would venture to bet that even the interest on such monies remain locked to the Tidelands uses.

For example, according to the recently adopted 2010 budget, the Tidelands Operating Funds are projected to start the budget year with total resources of $181 million (this special fund includes revenue from the port transfer, the Aquarium, the Queen Mary and Convention Center). The 2010 expenditures are expected to be $134 million, leaving the fund with just over $47 million at the end of the budget year.

Now, for 2010 the port is expected to transfer about $16 million to the city. This would mean the port profits for the year the transfer is based on were about $160 million. If the voters decided to increase the transfer to 20 percent, the transfer amount would climb to $32 million, or at 25 percent it would increase to $40 million.

However, this would merely boost the Tidelands Fund cash on hand to $63 million for a 20 percent transfer or up to $71 million for a 25 percent transfer.

The point is, the money would just wind up sitting since the Tidelands Operating Funds do not spend as much as they bring in.

Now call me a cynic, but the way I see it is that if a transfer increase is approved, what we will see a few years down the road is City Hall suddenly realizing that the port Tidelands fund has, oh, let’s say $100 million in unspent funds in it. Then City Hall, never one to let good money go to rot, will suddenly decide that the Aquarium needs a whole new extension that will cost, oh, I'm guessing exactly $100 million. Or a Convention Center overhaul to the tune of $100 million, or a new $100 million Aquatics park in Shoreline Village. Take your pick.

The point is, voters originally approved the port transfer as little more than an emergency funding mechanism, not a city development fund. And keep in mind that this hypothetically unused port transfer money in my futuristic scenario will be doing nothing to help the port redevelop and make itself more competitive.

Which brings me to the final complication.

Simply put, the idea of increasing the port transfer is very short-sighted. If you listen to the business interests and the port officials, the port will need every penny it can make over the next decade to modernize and redevelop port facilities in order to remain competitive. Taking 15 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent of the port profits will, according to opponents of the idea, seriously impact the port's ability to do this.

And there is some serious validity to their concerns.

Sometime in 2014-2015, the Panama Canal is set to open with new and greatly expanded locks that will accommodate the largest container ships afloat. This event will have a major impact on the Long Beach port because now many of these 'Post-Panamax' vessels call at LA/LB and ship their goods via rail to the rest of the nation (currently, about 50 percent of the Long Beach port's containers head east of the Rockies). The expanded Canal will eliminate the need for this west-to-east "land bridge" and many shippers have already said privately that they can't wait.

This means that the Long Beach port will either have to become more efficient to compete or risk losing a double-digit percentage of the containers coming across its docks and wharves.

However, to do this requires serious investment on the part of the port, which does not use tax dollars and relies on revenues from terminal leases and docking fees. A redevelopment project could cost the port anywhere from $1 million to $3 million per acre to redevelop an old terminal into a more efficient facility. As nearly all of the port's seven or eight terminals are over 100 acres, you can see how quickly the costs could add up.

Certainly the city needs to explore every avenue for increasing revenue, and the council should be looking at the port transfer. However, unless City Hall can learn to deal with its own spending habit, can adequately address the Tidelands legal issues and prove that it will not place too great a burden on the port's ability to modernize, then it should remain just that--a discussion.

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