FARGO, N.D. – Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski is retiring.
At a press conference announcing his retirement Wednesday afternoon at Fargo City Hall, Zibolski expressed his thanks for the community and his department.
“Our department is filled with outstanding men and women who go out there every day to keep our community safe,” he said. “I’m very proud of all of their efforts and all of our accomplishments during my tenure.”
Zibolski, who has been with the department for five years, said his executive team are ‘well prepared’ for the transition.
“That’s one of the big responsibilities in this role is making sure that when you transition out the next person is ready,” he said. “They’re definitely ready. Our team all the way down is just outstanding and pulling the rope in the same direction, which is critical for really good public service.”
Zibolski said he’s leaving the department ‘on a good note.’
“I like where our department is,” he said. “We finished the year again with a huge reduction in crime across the board. We’ve got great leadership in place at all levels of the department. And we’re continuing to push forward with some new technology in our wellness piece is expanding and taking care of our cops across all of our staff.”
The transition
The Fargo City Commission will decide who will be the interim chief.
But Zibolski said he has complete confidence that his assistant chief, Travis Stefonowicz, is ready ‘to take the helm’ in the interim.
“He’s prepared. He’s got the skills and he’s very well supported by the department as well,” he said. “The Commission has to decide that, but that would certainly be my recommendation.”
Moving towards a permanent replacement
While the City will name an interim later this month, the process to a full-time replacement for Zibolski will take some time.
With an election coming up in June, City Administrator Michael Redlinger said the city needs to be ‘really careful and considerate and thoughtful about when we move forward with that process.’
“We’ll get a process underway,” he said. “We’ll work with the current commission. But obviously we have a number of new elected officials potentially joining our board and we’ll want to make sure that they’re a part of a future process as well.”
