PRESQUE ISLE – A new planning and development director will be on board starting Sept. 5, after the City Council’s unanimous confirmation on Monday night of Ken Arndt.

After an executive session, the council voted to confirm the city manager’s appointment of Arndt, 57, of Presque Isle. He will replace Jim Brown, who retired from the position in July.

Arndt will be working on some major projects when he steps in, including the Aroostook County Transportation Study, the city’s comprehensive plan, the hiring of a new city planner and collaboration efforts with the downtown revitalization committee.

“I think the city is very pleased to have drawn someone of Arndt’s caliber for the director’s position,” City Manager Tom Stevens said on Tuesday. “We look forward to an exciting department as we work into the future.”

Arndt is coming on board as the city considers major changes to the department he will oversee. The day after he begins work, the Presque Isle City Council will hold the second of two public hearings to discuss changing the Department of Economic and Community Development to the Department of Planning and Development. The name change and realignment would allow the department to focus on planning, while the city’s industrial council would handle more of the city’s economic development.

Arndt said he is excited about coming in to the new position and not at all phased by the responsibilities it will entail.

“I have a high comfort level with doing this new position, and the responsibilities of this new position,” Arndt said on Tuesday. “It’s exciting to be able to get back into something that I had committed to for a large portion of my professional career, and it’s the place to be, being in Presque Isle, as far as having the opportunity to be involved with community planning again.”

Arndt has served since 1995 as the director of child development services in Presque Isle. Before that, he served as executive director of the Central Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District for one year, as president of a private planning and engineering consulting firm for five years, and before that as assistant executive director and contract services administrator for Northern Maine Development Commission for 18 years.

Arndt received a bachelor’s degree in geography with a concentration in urban and regional planning in 1971 from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Indiana, Pa.