OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — The new city manager for Oshkosh, Rebecca Grill, begins her position on Feb. 24. She says she's focused on relationship building, real estate and business development, and homelessness.
- Rebecca Grill has over 20 years of experience working with local government.
- Grill is currently the city administrator for West Allis.
- Grill says her strengths lie in relationship building and containing costs.
After 16 years in Oshkosh, Mark Rohloff left his position as Oshkosh city manager in December 2024.
In November, the city held a meet and greet with four possible candidates to fill the vacancy.
On Dec.19, the council announced Rebecca Grill as the new city manager. She will begin the role on Feb. 24, while the previous assistant city manager, John Fitzpatrick, serves as interim city manager.
"I'm really excited to start in the position," Grill says. "I'm looking at a lot of different things in the city, doing some research, trying to find out a little more before I start."
Grill has never served as city manager before but says she still has the necessary experience to be successful.
Before serving as West Allis' city administrator for 10 years, she says she worked for the City of Milwaukee for 17 years.
"So I'm very familiar with local government and challenges and building relationships and being community-oriented, so I think all of those things have led me to being ready and having the experience to do well in the city manager position for Oshkosh," she says.
City council approved Grill's contract at their Dec. 23 meeting. The agreement states Grill will be paid a salary of $210,000, until Aug. 1, 2025, when her salary will be raised to $216,300 if her work is found satisfactory.
Grill says she is not moving to Oshkosh because of family.
"At this time I'm not," she says. "My daughter is in high school, so there's different considerations, my husband owns his own business, so we're just working through some of those things, so not at this time. I would love to move there."
Grill says her main focus will be on development and addressing homelessness.
"Development related to on the water, the Fox River, the lakes," she says. "I think it would be a perfect place to try to draw people who are retired or seniors to move into condos or something along the waterways."
She also says she will work to ease concerns about rising property taxes and the overall cost of living.
"Really sitting down with the department heads and talking through the initiatives and the challenges and the different decisions that have been made over the years recently for budgeting," she says. "I have a lot of experience in coming up with different ways to lower costs... through collaborations, working together to do cost containment, and I hope I can bring some of that to Oshkosh for the residents because really that's, that's who we're working for."
