Langley has hired a new director of Community Planning for Langley with 25 years of public and private planning experience.

Mayor Fred McCarthy announced that Michael Davolio, a career planner with more than two decades of experience on both coasts and the Middle East, accepted the city’s offer Dec. 20. For Davolio, the Dec. 19 call from McCarthy was a most welcome early Christmas gift.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Davolio said in a telephone interview Monday.

His first day will be Jan. 5, 2015 for the Langley City Council meeting, though it will not be his first time at such a meeting. Davolio attended the Dec. 15 city council meeting to observe how the city operated, and liked what he saw.

“That was my way of interviewing the city, to see if that was a place I wanted to be,” Davolio said. “I was so impressed with the quality of discourse. Even the people who disagreed with the city were treated with dignity.”

He replaces the city’s former planning director, Jeff Arango, who left for a position with BERK Consulting in Seattle after three and a half years in the Village by the Sea.

Langley received 17 applications for the job, which will pay Davolio a $71,459 salary plus at least $30,000 in benefits. A seven-member screening committee that included Langley Public Works Director Stan Berryman and Councilman Jim Sundberg, along with other residents and business leaders, whittled the list to three finalists. Interviews were conducted last week and originally the group could not come to a consensus, but the mayor and committee selected Davolio as their top choice.

“We had three good candidates, excellent people,” McCarthy said.

“He was, of the people who applied, the very best person we thought for the job,” the mayor added.

Davolio comes to Langley after spending the past six years criss-crossing the country. He leaves as a principal at CREA Affiliates in Seattle. His most recent city planning job was with Pawtucket, R.I., between May 2011 and July 2012, during which time he managed the city’s office as well as headed up the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency to attract new businesses to the city, and oversaw a four-week arts festival.

Arts and commerce were his two main interests, and both attracted him to Langley. He visited the city earlier this year during work on Second Street.

“One of the things that impressed the heck out of me was that, as frustrated as some business owners were with the work, they accepted it because they bought into the long-term progress,” Davolio said, adding that he preferred an approach similar to Langley’s where the city shaped the capital project with public input from the start, even though it can mean a longer process.

“Having the public buy-in is critical,” he said.

Davolio was part of a group that, he said, essentially designed a city from scratch in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 2012. In Langley, he’ll deal with well-established zones and a century of history, in addition to shoreline master plans, growth management and new city code. Previous experience working in Island County as a consultant on portions of the comprehensive plan in 2000 will help him, he said.

Another feature he noticed was the vacancy of some prominent buildings, such as the former Mike’s Place Restaurant and the Dog House Tavern. He said the staging and decorations were good covers to hide the emptiness, but that in Pawtucket he facilitated storefront vacancies being used as walk-by galleries.

“It makes the place more attractive, it makes the vacant storefront more attractive to store owners.”

For the past month, Langley’s planning services have been managed by Jack Lynch, a former city planning director. McCarthy said he hopes to keep Lynch on concurrently to assist with the transition at least through January.

When Davolio begins, he faces a mountain of work. The mayor listed more than 30 items of major interest for the city in 2015. At the forefront of the list are the conveyance of people and gear between the marina of South Whidbey Harbor and available parking on Cascade Avenue, and working with the Dog House Tavern owners toward renovation and reopening of the historic building. Exactly when Davolio will be expected to take on the major projects was not known.

“I think we have to be realistic and give him time to learn our system and meet our people,” McCarthy said.

“I have every expectation that he will be the right person,” he added.

One of the more productive programs rebooted by Arango was the city’s use of interns this year, which the mayor said he hopes Davolio will continue.