CARRBORO — David L. Andrews, the finance director and assistant town manager of Paradise Valley, Ariz., has been hired to serve as Carrboro’s town manager.
Andrews will replace Interim Town Manager Matt Efird on March 15.
Andrews is a Texas native who has been working in Arizona municipal governments since 1990, but when he picked up the phone on Thursday, he was already acclimating to the priorities and basketball rivalries of his new hometown. “Did you see the game?” he asked, referring to No. 10 Duke’s buzzer-beating upset of No. 5 UNC Chapel Hill.
Andrews grew up in a football state, but learned a few things about hoops while in graduate school at the University of Arizona.
“I moved to Tucson from Austin, Texas, over 20 years ago, with the intention of getting my master’s degree in public administration and becoming a city manager,” Andrews said Thursday. “I love local government, have a passion for it and that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I started with the intention that I would move around quite a bit, but ... I ended up staying in Arizona a lot longer than I ever thought I would.”
After working for municipal governments in South Tucson and the town of Oro Valley, Andrews moved to Paradise Valley, a suburb of Scottsdale, in March 2010. Like Carrboro, Paradise Valley is a small, mostly residential community; its population is 12,820.
Andrews said he and his wife had been considering the next move for some time, but wanted to find a community that was “a really good place.” He characterized Arizona politics as “as a whole, conservative,” and added that he was attracted to Carrboro’s “very progressive community, both in terms of the board, the community, and their values.
“I was really attracted to their desire to promote the local living economy,” he said, “and they’re well ahead on walkability, bicycle paths, transportation, and it’s all those things, since they are so progressive, that made me think ‘I want to work in a place like that.’”
Andrews said he has his eye on several local concerns, but the first is the town budget.
“The town has already started its fiscal ’12-13 process, so I will need to immerse myself in that right away,” he said. “I’ve researched some of the issues, concerns and priorities of the board with regard to economic development and finance. I believe the budget is stable. I read that the current year, ’11-12, the town was able to balance the budget without a tax rate increase or any decrease in services. I’m anticipating that that’s what ’12-13 will look like, or somewhere close.”
Andrews and his wife, Salette, have made an offer on a townhouse “just a couple of blocks from town hall,” so he can walk to work. They’re looking forward to checking out the farmer’s market — “My wife is a vegan and Scottsdale has a real good farmer’s market here” — and said his first impression of the county is that it is “well-educated people, progressive, and also people have been really friendly.”
