Menke Named Permanent City Manager

     In a surprise move, the Chadron City Council last night unanimously voted to make Utilities Superintendent Tom Menke the new city manager.

Menke’s been the interim city manager since the retirement of John Sutherland in late October.

      Menke joined the city in 2008 to head up the water and wastewater division, a job title that over time morphed into Utilities Superintendent. He was reelected last year to a 4th term on the Chadron School Board and has been board president since 2017.

      The council had decided not to use a consulting firm to help find the next city manager, but still hadn’t begun taking applications when Mayor George Klein used a vague agenda item on the position and search process to propose hiring Menke. 

     Klein said after the meeting that he’d talked with the other council members about Menke’s performance as interim city manager and concluded no search was needed.

Menke says the council action “kind of caught me off guard” and that he hopes he can live up to the confidence shown in him by the council and the citizens of Chadron. 

Menke’s biggest supporter on the council turns out to be Joe Johndreau, who revealed that Menke had been an applicant the last time there was a vacancy.

      Johndreau said he’d pushed for Menke to be named a finalist because he did so well in all segments of the search process.

The only objection to Menke’s appointment last night came from the audience. City resident and County Commissioner Jake Stewart questioned whether hiring from within would discourage good candidates from applying for top city positions in the future.

      Johndreau said Menke has proven “over and over” as interim city manager why he’s the right choice, explaining that despite the city being repeatedly battered by wind and snowstorms since October, employee morale is high, the city is still on budget, and a variety of projects are getting complete.

       Johndreau added that he saw no reason to go ahead with a formal search process because it makes no sense to “fabricate an obligation to open a process we don’t need.”

     Menke is just the second current Chadron employee to be picked as city manager in more than half a century. The other was Carl Dierkes, who was the longtime city engineer when he became city manager in the 1970s.

     Although he’s delegated some of the duties, Menke has continued to serve as Utilities Superintendent while interim city manager, but says he wants to get his old job filled just as soon as possible.

Menke says there simply isn’t time for him to be able to fill the duties of both positions himself..