The Channel Islands Beach Community Services District broke no laws when it spent public money to fight a proposal for a boating center at Channel Islands Harbor, Ventura County prosecutors concluded in a report released Friday.

In 2004 and 2005, the Community Services District, a government agency that provides water, sewer and trash services in and around the harbor, gave $17,450 to an environmental group to help pay for a lawsuit against the county of Ventura over the location of the proposed boating center.

County Counsel Noel Klebaum told the Board of Supervisors last year that the allocation may have been an illegal gift of public funds, as well as an illegal conflict of interest because some Community Services District board members were also on the board of the Beacon Foundation, the nonprofit that received the money.

After Klebaum's report became public, District Attorney Greg Totten opened a criminal inquiry into the matter.

But the district attorney's report, written by Deputy District Attorney Robert Meyers, says investigators found no evidence of illegal activity.

There was no gift of public funds, the report states, because the boating center controversy is a matter of legitimate public interest within the Community Service District's jurisdiction. Under California law, a "gift of public funds" only occurs when public money is given for someone's private benefit.

The district attorney's report also found no violation of California's conflict of interest laws, because the Community Service District board members did not get any financial benefit from the Beacon Foundation's activities.

"We are very relieved and grateful to the DA for finally laying this matter to rest," said Lee Quaintance, a member of the Beacon Foundation board.

The inquiry took eight months — longer than expected, in part because Quaintance and some Community Services District board members refused to be interviewed by the District Attorney's Office. Instead, they provided written answers through their attorneys.

"Usually criminal investigations don't start with someone making a public announcement and pointing fingers that some people may have committed crimes," Meyers said. "When that happens, people are going to talk to their attorneys and they're not going to want to talk to us."

Assistant County Counsel Roberto Orellana, who co-wrote the earlier report with Klebaum, said he stands by the county counsel's opinion.

"The DA said there was no illegal activity. Our conclusion was only that they may have had unlawful activity, and we saw nothing in the DA's report that would make us change our conclusions on that," Orellana said.

"Unlawful activity" refers to actions that may warrant a civil lawsuit from one of the district's ratepayers, Orellana said, while "illegal activity" means violations that would result in criminal prosecution.

However, no ratepayers sued the district over the payments, and the statute of limitations for a lawsuit has expired. The suit filed by the Beacon Foundation was dismissed in 2005.

Another nonprofit, Habitat for Hollywood Beach, sued the California Coastal Commission over its approval of the boating center. That lawsuit prompted a judge to order the Coastal Commission to submit another environmental study before construction can begin.

The work that the Community Services District funded was the compilation of an "administrative record" for the Beacon Foundation's lawsuit, or a complete record of all hearings and documents on the proposed boating center.

The record amounted to more than 7,000 pages. Though the lawsuit was dismissed, the administrative record was still a valuable resource, Quaintance said.

"It's a permanent community record of a very big local controversy, and it's available to anyone," he said.

The Community Services District also funded a study on where the boating center should be located. It concluded that either the east side or west side of the harbor would be suitable.

The county is planning to build it on the west side, while the Beacon Foundation and the Community Services District board favor an east side location.