FRENCHVILLE, Maine — Millinocket native John Davis said Monday that he will be leaving his job as Frenchville town manager on March 31 for a position elsewhere.
Davis declined to identify his new job, saying that his new employer would disclose his being hired by Friday and that he would start his new job in early April. He said he leaves Frenchville with some regrets.
“Things have gone very well. I like the people here, and I like it here. It was a tough choice,” Davis said Monday.
The 59-year-old is paid $46,920 to oversee 11 workers at the town office and the town transfer station in the northern Aroostook County town of about 1,000 residents. He has worked for Frenchville since October 2013. The position was his first in local government, according to Davis, who has a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of Maine at Augusta and is a course shy of a minor in business administration.
Millinocket Town Manager Peggy Daigle is due to leave her position in April. Millinocket Town Council Chairman Richard Angotti Jr. said the council is due to consider signing a contract with Daigle’s replacement on Thursday. He declined to say who the replacement might be.
Davis served as Millinocket’s Town Council chairman from November 2004 until taking the Frenchville position. The new job represented the culmination of years of work for him. He started studying government management after he was laid off from East Millinocket’s mill in 2004. He had worked at the mill for 35 years. He was re-elected to the council in 2009.
Davis said one of his regrets was not finishing a three- to five-year road improvement plan for Frenchville.
But he said he is glad that he helped arrange volunteer efforts that led to Main Street being decorated by the town historical society and the renovation of ballfields at Frenchville Community Center.