JANESVILLE—Janesville Police Chief David Moore will spend the rest of the fall and possibly the winter splitting duties between the Janesville police headquarters on North Jackson Street and the city manager’s office across the street at City Hall.
The Janesville City Council on Monday night named Moore, police chief for the past 13 years, as acting city manager. He’ll take on that role in the interim as city manager Mark Freitag leaves for a new job as city manager of Westminster, Colorado on Oct. 24.
Moore told The 69 after the appointment Monday night that he’d agreed a couple of weeks ago to take on the dual roles temporarily, juggling some continued roles as police chief while he serves for up to the next six months as acting city manager.
The city’s top cop said Monday night, after the council approved his appointment as acting city manager, that he’d been called in for a meeting by City Council President Paul Benson and City Council Vice President David Marshick following a closed session discussion on the pending manager vacancy.
Moore told The 69 he initially figured the two council leaders planned to gauge his support for another candidate they might name as a finalist for acting city manager. Moore said he hadn’t independently pursued the interim role. Instead, he said, Benson and Marshick asked if he’d take it on.
“It’s the first job I’ve ever had that I didn’t apply for,” Moore said Monday night.
Moore told The 69 he’s spoken with his deputy police chiefs and other leadership at the police department, and his staff has worked through how they’d fulfill some of the Moore’s administrative duties while he assumes this overarching role.
Ryan McCue, the deputy city manager for the bulk of Freitag’s 9-year tenure, will continue in that role. McCue for years has handled some top administrative duties at the city, including labor negotiations between the city and police and fire unions.
Under the law, Moore can fill in for six months before the city must either reappoint an interim manager or make a permanent hire.
The council as of Monday night was still working through a plan to launch a recruitment effort for a permanent city manager.
The city manager is considered the city’s chief executive officer, and Moore’s duties coming in the door will include shepherding both the annual budget and landmark public-private developments in the works, including a planned ice arena and convention center at Uptown Janesville and a proposed 1.5-million-square-foot strawberry greenhouse on Janesville’s south side. Those two projects together could cost $50 million or more, according to estimates.
Moore’s appointment came after Benson last week announced on the city’s website what he called a “finalist” for the interim city manager who’d take the helm temporarily when Freitag departs.
Benson said last week the council was opting to withhold the finalist’s name pending the person talking over the appointment with family, friends and coworkers.
The 69 had sought the release of the interim appointee’s name under a state law that requires cities to announce all finalists selected for such municipal employment roles. But Benson, Marshick and City Attorney Wald Klimczyk all declined to unveil Moore’s name until the council was prepared to vote Monday night.
Klimczyk would only say the city had no applicants for the interim post and as of last week no official human resources records had been filed, and Benson declined to share any other details of the council’s decision.
On Monday, the council didn’t give any further details about the appointment or why the city waited until Monday to name Moore.
Moore said he doesn’t question why the council opted to wait until it was voting Monday before announcing the appointment, but said he’d already made up his mind prior to last week that he’d take on the temporary role.
“I think the council wanted to the chance to present it publicly, themselves. I think that is what they wanted. And I think that’s fair,” Moore said.
Moore said he’d spent time last week discussing the decision with his police staff and other City Hall leadership, but didn’t elaborate on those talks.
Benson said the agreement by Moore and the council’s approval of his interim appointment made him “excited” and “proud.” He called McCue “strong” as a continued deputy manager, and Marshick said Moore and McCue will make “great team” for leadership as the city seeks a full-time manager.
Unattended cars
Moore’s appointment came Monday night after the council batted around, and then tabled, a proposal Moore had forwarded earlier this month as police chief. It would decrease the timeframe a car can be parked unattended before it’s considered “abandoned,” from 48 hours to 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Moore said he’s already shaped up the city’s police budget and he plans to “step away” from negotiations over the police department’s upcoming contract talks, saying his deputy leadership would take on those responsibilities.
Moore said that some roles, such as executive oversight of city public works operations and city economic development operations, would be new responsibilities he’s not handled wearing a police chief’s badge.
But he said he’s got relationships with city leadership in various departments from years as a city employee and administrator.
“There’s really well qualified people in all these areas, to see things forward,” Moore said.
