BPCA President Quit for California Job

Demetrios A. Boutris with chairman Dennis Mehiel at the Battery Park City Authority board meeting last October, where Mehiel introduced him as the authority's new president. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Battery Park City Authority president Demetrios A. Boutris, who quit his briefly held job suddenly and without explanation on Aug. 16, is taking a position in his home state of California.

Beginning in October, Boutris will head a land development and land consulting company based in Roseville, Calif., according to an announcement released Thursday by the company, KT Communities. Boutris started at the authority last October.

It is still unclear why Boutris quit with no notice or public comment.

BPCA chairman Dennis Miehel named chief financial officer Robert Serpico as the authority's interim president and chief operating officer. At a meeting of the BPCA board of directors on Tuesday, Aug. 20, Miehel lightheartedly referred to Serpico, a 27-year veteran of the authority, as "the boss," but otherwise made no mention of the transition during the meeting.

Boutris, a lawyer, has long been associated with Miehel in support of Greek-American causes. He came to the authority from California, where he was a business consultant and real estate investor, splitting his time between homes in Los Angeles and Sacramento and the Upper West Side, where his wife and two sons lived. According to the KT Communities statement, Boutris has "previously consulted extensively with KT Communities and its founder and chairman, Kyriakos Tsakopoulos."

Boutris had given up his business interests to take the BPCA job, according to the authority at the time of his appointment.