AUBURN — GPS devices are great, but they don’t help you get really familiar with a new city, Clinton Deschene, Auburn’s new city manager said Monday.

“I have to learn quite a bit,” Deschene said before his first City Council meeting. “They’re going to take me on some tours of projects facing public works, and get me more acclimated. I have a lot of street names floating around in my head and I want to get them straight. I’m asking for a map so I can get it in my head, what’s what and where it is.”

Deschene started his first day as city manager Monday, driving down from his home in Hermon, outside of Bangor, early in the morning. He spent the day in staff meetings, reviews of a proposed dual ice rink facility proposal and in the City Council workshop and meeting Monday night.

Deschene is staying with family in Lewiston for the time being and is waiting to sell his home in Hermon before moving his family here. His home is under contract and he said he is committed to having his family settled by the end of the summer.

“I have a few more hurdles to cross, but we’ll be up here in time for my daughter to start first grade,” Deschene said.

He replaces Glenn Aho, terminated by the the previous City Council in October. Councilors hired consultants Eaton Peabody to lead the search for Aho’s replacement and manage the city in the meantime.

Deschene was one of three candidates councilors interviewed in April. They brought him and Benjamin Marchant, of Idaho, to the city to meet residents earlier in May.

Deschene is a lifelong Maine resident and current manager in Hermon, a town of 5,500 residents.

He graduated high school in 1991 in Presque Isle and graduated from the University of Maine in 1995. He graduated with a law degree from Suffolk in Boston in 1998 and began working for the Town of Bradford in 1999. He began working in Hermon in 2002.

Deschene said his first order of business, once he gets settled, is to start plotting the City Council’s work agenda for the summer.

He’s meeting individually with each councilor this week to learn their priorities. Don Gerrish, the interim city manager hired to lead the city while councilors looked for a permanent replacement, left behind some notes and suggestions, as well.

“So I’m going to put up an idea sheet, just a list,” he said. “We’ll go off of that for a while and see what’s attainable. I’m going to have to keep things pretty fluid for these first six months. There is so much already going on, and we need to meet that, but you always have to be thinking about the future.”

According to his contract, Deschene will be paid $94,000 per year. That increases to $97,000 after six months and $99,000 after his first year.

The contract also pays Deschene $70 per month for a cellphone, $400 per month for car allowance and paid membership in the International Association of City Managers, a professional development group.

The contract also sets up a termination process, requiring councilors to give Deschene 30 days notice and a six-month severance package if they decide to terminate his contract without cause. It also requires them to give him a 90-day notice if they choose to not renew his contract.

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