City's Historic Preservation Manager Could Be History

Several months after the city’s overseer of historic properties left for a new job, San Juan Capistrano staff has decided to do away with the position to save money.

On Tuesday, the City Council will consider a plan to incorporate some of the duties of the historic preservation manager into the assistant director of Development Services, a currently unfunded, unfilled position.

“The historic preservation manager position has been vacant within the Development Services Department since November 2011, and must be considered in terms of how best this function can be achieved and effectively serve the residents of the city,” wrote City Manager Karen Brust in a letter to the council.

Teri Delcamp held the position before . She was with the city six years and helped design the award-winning Los Rios Park and the Cultural Heritage Commission, an advisory body to the City Council.

She also managed restoration projects at eight city-owned historic buildings and coordinated events for the city's annual Historic Preservation Week celebration.

The position was created in 2003, according to the staff report.

Although a new assistant director can pick up some of the former duties of the historic preservation manager, a consultant may have to take over other responsibilities, Brust wrote.

“Expertise in the areas of the Secretary of Interior’s standards for historical building adaptive reuse, rehabilitation, grant writing and environmental analysis plan review can be outsourced to a professional firm that would also have the ability to perform plan check; analysis; artifact, archeology and paleontology evaluation; and [California Environmental Quality Act compliance], which at times has been outsourced even with the full-time historic preservation manager position,” she wrote.

The move could save the city between $80,000 and $103,000 because the plan is to promote from within for the assistant director’s position, the report states. The vacancy left by that employee would then go unfilled.

The City Council meets 6 p.m. Tuesday at , 32400 Paseo Adelanto, San Juan Capistrano.