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Eau Claire (WQOW) - The first day on the job can be
nerve-racking. Now imagine that job includes overseeing an entire city
budget. Russell Van Gompel is Eau Claire's new
city manager.
Monday was his first day on the job.
He will oversee a budget of about $130 million and more than 500
employees.
Van Gompel has been the
village manager in Brown Deer for the past 14 years. Brown Deer is a suburb of Milwaukee. Van Gompel says he is ready to
work for a city that's considered an area hub. "What's really
exciting about it is it's college community and a college town and having
younger people involved in the community is very exciting and I look forward to
that opportunity of working a full service community," says Eau Claire
City Manager Russell Van Gompel.
Eau
Claire has been without a permanent city manager since last December. Van Gompel also talked about one of the challenges the new job will present.
He says, "The
pressure on property taxes is not unique to any one community across the entire
state and the whole challenge in local government is to try to continue to
provide the services that the people want and do it in a cost effective manner.
And sometimes we have to make hard choices on what services are most critical
and how we are going to fund those services."
Van Gompel
has a three-year contract with the city.
