Ferndale assistant city manager moves into interim role

FERNDALE — The city of Ferndale has appointed an interim city manager while it continues its search for a permanent replacement.

Ferndale has chosen Assistant City Manager James Krizan as its interim manager after the departure of Joe Gacioch, who has left for the city manager position in Royal Oak.

Krizan began his tenure in Ferndale earlier this year after arriving from Lincoln Park, where he had served as its city manager for four years.

“The responsibilities, of course, are broader and more organization-wide,” he said. “As assistant city manager, in the day-to-day I was directly responsible for overseeing the City Clerk’s Office, our zero waste systems manager and our special events director, and then filling in whenever Joe would be out for an extended time. But now as the interim, I’m directly responsible for overseeing all the department heads, coordinating with the council to help implement their goals at a time when we’ve got a lot going on.”

Though he’s been in the city less than a year, Krizan feels he’s acclimated to Ferndale pretty well and has had many opportunities to engage with the community on a number of initiatives.

“Over the last year, I have had an amazing opportunity to work with some of the best department heads around and to engage with residents throughout the Headlee campaign, when we did a lot of community events to try and engage with residents and talk about what Headlee is and why we need to do this, as we went through the Martin Road (Park) facility community engagement, we had an excellent opportunity there to engage with residents. … So I feel really good about the fit here, and I really love working for this community and I’m totally committed to it.”

Mayor Raylon Leaks-May stated she was able to have a one-on-one conversation with Krizan before the City Council decided to select him, as she wanted to find out exactly if Krizan felt he was capable of doing this role in addition to everything that he’d already been taking on.

“I know that the council was concerned that even if he perhaps wanted to even go up for the actual city manager position, we didn’t want to set him up for any type of failure being overwhelmed with all of the work that we had coming forward for the city, like our Headlee didn’t pass,” she said. “So we’re thinking about putting together a new initiative ballot proposal on the ballot for May. We have our budget season coming up in March, April-ish, and we also have the union negotiations coming up. So there’s a lot that’s coming to the forefront for James. And talking with him, he assured me that he was up for the task (and) staff assured me that they were up to assisting him in this role.”

With issues like the Headlee and union negotiations coming up next year, Krizan said his No. 1 priority is helping the City Council on coming up with a proposal for a Headlee override vote in May. He also is prioritizing the upcoming budget season and collective bargaining.

“We’re going to be doing some more community engagement (on the Headlee), some public education, another town hall coming up here in a few weeks, and so I’ll be supporting a lot on that,” he said. “Collective bargaining, I wasn’t involved here until now, but I do have a history. I was the city manager in Lincoln Park for almost four years, and one of my major responsibilities was collective bargaining there.”

Leaks-May said Krizan already has stepped up in his new role as interim city manager

“He’s already set up one-on-ones with council (members),” she said. “I was concerned about that, because we have our monthly one-on-ones, me probably more so than just a one-on-one to get updates, and he’s already stepping into that role. We’re already planning another town hall to meet with residents to discuss what they’d like to see for a new Headlee proposal. He’s already setting those things up with me. So I’m seeing positive things moving forward. He’s already jumping into the role.”