NEWBURYPORT — In early January 2006, Mayor John Moak took office, switching roles from city clerk to the top elected official in the city.

On Monday, he will enter City Hall for the final time as mayor. When he walks out a few hours later, he will have turned the reins over to the city's new mayor, Donna Holaday.

Moak said he's spent his final days in office cleaning out his personal belongings and finishing up paperwork to get things ready for Holaday.

"It's odd," Moak said earlier this week. "I've been here for 15 years. The realization is starting to hit."

The mayor said he's spent much of the last decade and a half interacting with the same people: City Hall staff, councilors and the public. To no longer see those people every day will be a change, he said.

"As I've said before, I would have liked to go one more term," Moak said. "I just couldn't afford it."

As mayor, Moak earned an annual salary of $65,000, composed of a $60,000 base salary and two stipends. With his new job, as town administrator of Pepperell, which he begins on Monday, he will make $94,000.

Moak said he has visited Pepperell several times since his hiring a few weeks ago. He enjoys the community and is looking forward to helping the town handle the tough financial times, he said.

Still, it will be a change to leave Newburyport. As city clerk, he frequented Angie's for lunch several times a week. There were places and faces you get used to over the years, Moak said.

"It's just another chapter," he said. "You have to move on."

A few weeks ago, the mayor had his final meeting with all of the city's department heads. Looking around the room, he said he feels good about how he is leaving the city on an economically stable level, despite the tough economic times, without having to issue major layoffs.

"I feel really good about that," the mayor said.

"It was a tremendous privilege to be mayor," Moak said, adding that he has a "great deal of pride" having been elected by the people twice.

"It's been an incredible experience," Moak said.

After two terms in office, Moak said he counts a variety of projects among his proudest accomplishments. They range from having the renovations to the outside of City Hall come in on time and under budget to seeing the implementation of solar panels on top of Nock Middle School. He is proud of being able to work with the Planning Office to ensure that the funding for the Rail Trail project stayed with the city after the state and federal government raised concerns.

"We were real close to losing it," he said. "I sweated that one for a week."

He is proud, too, of the way the city respected him and his family, Moak said.

"They didn't impose themselves on me," he said. "I never felt uncomfortable going to dinner, or to a ball game, or a function. I enjoyed Newburyport as much, if not more, as mayor, than I did not being mayor."

"Overall, I think probably the thing I am most proud of is that I stuck to my own philosophy, my own standards ... I stayed true to myself," Moak said.

As he looks ahead to his future, Moak said he doesn't rule out becoming involved in the city once again in upcoming years. He's interested in the Harbor Commission and the NRA. His wife is on the board of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, and he is looking forward to lending his volunteer efforts there as well.

As town administrator, his workday will be more routine, such as 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with one meeting a week. It will leave him more time to be active in different organizations and to start up woodworking projects he has long set aside, he said.

"I have to get the rust off my woodworking tools," he said.