Ashley Wysocki promoted as staff continues to leave Huntington Beach

The state of California has dubbed July as Parks Make Life Better Month.

Huntington Beach certainly has its share of parks, with 79 of them that total nearly 800 acres.

Now it has found the person whose tasks include optimizing Surf City’s outdoor programs and services.

Ashley Wysocki has been selected as Huntington Beach’s community and library services director, city officials confirmed Wednesday. She had been serving in the position in an interim role since former director Chris Slama resigned in March.

“Timing is everything, and you can’t plan for how and when things happen,” Wysocki said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Being a director was always on my radar, even as an entry-level full-time person. I’m so excited and so humbled to be chosen at this time in my career to step into a role like this.

“I’m looking forward to working alongside the city team and this [city] council to continue to enhance the programs and services in our community. Not only for the residents, but, also, this is a tourist town as well. There’s a lot of unique opportunities for not only myself but for the department to champion.”

Wysocki joined Huntington Beach city staff in May 2020 as a community services manager. A year later, she became the deputy director of community and library services.

Wysocki has been instrumental in merging community services and the library department into one high-performing department.

“I previously had experience in the city of Corona, where at that time, the community services and library departments were also merged,” she said. “I had a really open conversation with [Slama] about making sure that as we move through this process, everybody feels involved ... How do we help connect similar services on both sides of the two departments to combine into one and to really grow with each other?”

She cited the “Read to a Mermaid” program, where librarians would have a story time with children in the pool, as one example. There is also a senior reading and walking club, where the members walk through Central Park and talk about books with each other.

Wysocki, a former Huntington Beach resident, currently lives in Mission Viejo. She has a bachelor’s degree in recreation and leisure studies from Long Beach State, and a master’s in public administration from Cal State San Bernardino.

Community development director resigns

In other news involving top city officials, Ursula Luna-Reynosa announced last week she is resigning after more than five years as Huntington Beach’s community development director to become the economic development director in Garden Grove.

Ursula Luna-Reynosa has been Huntington Beach’s community development director since 2018.

(Courtesy of city of Huntington Beach )

Luna-Reynosa declined further comment Wednesday. Jennifer Villasenor will now serve as the city’s acting community development director.

Luna-Reynosa’s departure continues a recent trend of Surf City losing top-ranking city staff members. Slama and the public works director both left in March for Irvine, after that city hired Dahle Bulosan from Huntington Beach as its director of administrative services in January.

Acting Chief Financial Officer Sunny Han announced last month that she would also be leaving Huntington Beach, but she reconsidered a week later.