AUBURN — It’s not a new job that’s taking City Manager Howard Kroll away from Auburn this summer, but pressure from an ongoing one.

Kroll said he is resigning his position with the city later this summer to spend more time with wife, Tena, and 6-year-old son, Nicholas. Both live in Brewer, and Kroll said he wants to see them more regularly.

“I just can’t juggle everything that’s been going on in my life right now,” he said. “It was time for me to make a change.”

Seeing his family has been increasingly difficult since January, when his assignment in the Naval Reserve shifted from Bangor to the Defense Contract Management Agency based in Norfolk, Va. Kroll serves as a lieutenant in the reserve, which takes up at least one weekend each month and another two weeks each year.

“Before, I was based in Bangor so I could see them,” Kroll said. “Now, it’s just two weeks more away from them. So this was not the only factor, but it’s a part of it. When you take away a week of family time versus two weeks of not seeing my kin at all, it’s like I’m a divorced parent — and I’m not. So at some point, you have to call yourself out and do what’s best for your family.”

He doesn’t have a new job yet.

“I have some feelers out there,” Kroll said. “I have a couple of different options.”

Kroll announced his decision to resign from the city via email to city councilors on Saturday and to city staff Tuesday.

“I didn’t want to do it by email, but it needed to be said,” Kroll said. “They needed to know what was happening.”

City councilors met with Kroll for 45 minutes Wednesday night in a special closed-door executive session  to discuss his decision. They emerged after the meeting and took no action. Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said he expected councilors would act after Monday’s regular meeting.

Kroll said he expects to be finished in August, but that depends on what councilors want. He recommended Assistant City Manager Denis D’Auteuil fill in as interim manager.

“Denis is a young, up-and-coming guy and I’d love to see him get the opportunity,” Kroll said. “He’s given the city six years of his career, and I think he’s ready for the challenge.”

Kroll joined the Auburn staff in 2012 as assistant to City Manager Clinton Deschene. When Deschene resigned in November 2014, Kroll signed a nine-month interim contract later that month and became the full-time manager in August 2015.

“I regret leaving Auburn — I really do,” Kroll said. “I do truly love it here and I’ve enjoyed working with everyone. It may appear, at times, that we have a bad relationship, but we all have the same goal: to make Auburn a better place.”

Kroll also had kind words for his Lewiston colleagues, City Administrator Ed Barrett and Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau, and for the Joint Lewiston-Auburn Charter Commission. He’s working with the commission now, when not on the clock for the city, and plans to continue doing so.

“Auburn and Lewiston are large enough communities that this is a pretty big move to move it along as far as we have,” Kroll said. “I just want the right information to get out there, so the best-informed decision can be made.”

In the meantime, Kroll said he wants to focus on finishing up some long-term projects: completing construction of a bus station in Great Falls Plaza and rewriting the city’s tax-increment financing rules to allow that money to be spent on education.

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