Longtime Laguna Beach employee making a switch to Dana Point

Barbara Diamond

After 24 years on the city payroll, Community Development Director

Kyle Butterwick will soon be working for a new boss: Dana Point.

“This is a promotion for Kyle,” City Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman

said. “Dana Point is a bigger city. There are more planning issues,

and he will be paid more.”

A reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. July 31 at City Hall to

bid farewell to Butterwick, 51, a city employee since 1979.

“When I went through the recruitment process in Dana Point, I had

some reservations about leaving Laguna Beach, but I just had an

interest in facing a new challenge,” said Butterwick, who moved here

with his wife, Linda, the same year he went to work for the city.

The Butterwicks, who have been married 29 years, have more

invested in the city than his job.

Butterwick coached soccer for 10 years. Linda Butterwick is active

in SchoolPower. Elder daughter Lindsey, 19, was on the girl’s tennis

team at Laguna Beach High School, which won the record four straight

California Interscholastic Foundation championships (1999 to 2002).

She was awarded a tennis scholarship to UC Santa Barbara. The

Butterwicks’ younger daughter, Lorren, 15, is a sophomore on the

team.

“We will continue to live here,” Butterwick said. “This is such a

special place, I feel fortunate to live here. And it is full of great

people.”

Laguna Beach has provided its share of challenges for Butterwick.

“I think the most exiting project I worked on in Laguna Beach was

the Downtown Specific Plan,” Butterwick said. “It is the singly most

important planning document in the city.

“And it was rewarding because it accomplished pretty much what we

intended, preserving a distinctive downtown,” he said.

Treasure Island was one of the most involved -- and certainly one

of the most emotional -- projects the town ever faced.

“It started with the closure of the mobile home park, which in

many ways was more challenging than the entitlement process,”

Butterwick said. “So many people had lived there for so long.”

Diamond Crestview is still a challenge.

The development was required as a result of litigation. Plans are

still being processed, and there is almost continuous building in the

neighborhood. A building inspector from the development department’s

27 employees is on the site full time.

“But we have a functional specific plan,” Butterwick said. “We

recognized that the development needed constraints, and the city was

very proactive in creating the plan. “

One of the first projects Butterwick will take on in Dana Point is

the Town Center Specific Plan. It will involve design review,

although not as rigorous a process as Laguna’s.

“Dana Point understands Laguna’s process and they want something

less contentious and involved,” Butterwick said. “However, they do

want to enlarge their design review and make it somewhat more

encompassing.”

Butterwick’s first job in the city was as a planner. Two years

later, he was named assistant director of the development department.

He has headed the department since 1987, succeeding June Catalano,

who was hired away by Santa Ana.

“I am sorry to see him go,” zoning administrator John Tilton said.

“I met him when I was working as an architect here in 1985. I had a

particularly controversial oceanfront project, and he showed me how

the city works.”

Butterwick will serve Laguna through July. Assistant Development

Department Director John Montgomery has been named interim director

until recruitment for Butterwick’s replacement is completed, City

Manager Kenneth Frank said.