The city of Carnation welcomed its newest addition to the administration in October. Amy Arrington has recently been hired as the new City Administrator.

Coming from 20-year career in municipal administration, Arrington traveled across the country to move to Carnation. She comes to the Northwest from Davenport, Florida, where she worked as a city manager for 10 years.

Arrington graduated from Auburn University in Alabama with a degree in public administration and earned her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Central Florida. She began her career as an administrative intern in her home town of Kissimmee, Fla., before moving to St. Joseph, Mich., as a management assistant. She went back to Florida to work as an assistant city manager for Haines City and eventually became the city manager in Davenport.

Similar in size to Carnation, Davenport is a relatively small town just Southwest of Disney World. Arrington said she made the move because she loves to work in small communities but was looking for a new challenge, as well.

“I’ve always admired the Northwest, they’ve always been very innovative and forward thinking with policy and Carnation offered the challenges and quality of life that appeals to me,” she said. “I started working in local government because I wanted to help people. There is no form of government closer to the people than local government, you really know the citizens you are serving.”

Arrington said she is interested by the challenges facing the city and is excited to put her effort into the continued success of Carnation.

“I’m very excited about the future, I’m very fortunate the council and staff have been doing a great job, they have a lot of great programs ongoing,” she said. “I want to start taking the good work they already started and keep going.”

The future improvements to downtown along Tolt Avenue is one of the big projects she said the city is working on as a way to drive business and get more visitors.

Arrington said communication with citizens was one of the most important things she has learned to focus on during her career in local government. She wants to focus on engaging the community and plans to reach out the the businesses and citizens in Carnation.

“I would say the most important thing I’ve learned over the years is to be sure you listen to the citizens,” she said. “That’s who we serve so it’s really important to have that connection and hear the thoughts of the citizens because you can work together and achieve great success.”

She replaces interim city manager Bob Jean, who was hired in mid-April following former manager Phil Messina’s retirement at the end of March.