In the second night at his new Auburn home, Regan Bolli’s car was stolen from his driveway. Police told him it was a rarity in the neighborhood and found the vehicle days later, deposited in White Center with a few dings.

“Our neighbors said that was our nice welcome to the area,” said the 36-year-old transplant from Ephraim, Utah.

Bolli is expecting a much easier and more hospitable introduction in his new role as Covington’s city manager.

Bolli has more than seven years of local government experience, most recently through a four-year stint as city manager in Ephraim, population of roughly 6,300. Bolli earned his bachelor’s degree from BYU in American studies and a law degree from the University of Denver. He and his wife, Erin, have six children, whose ages range from 12 to less than a month.

Bolli steps in for Derek Matheson who resigned Aug. 8 for Kent’s chief administrative officer role. During the interim, Finance Director Rob Hendrickson served as city manager.

The Prothman Company from Issaquah conducted the search for a full time replacement, which resulted in nearly 40 applications.

The Covington City Council unanimously selected Bolli over three other candidates in November. He officially started in the role Jan. 12. His starting base salary is $151,072.

This is Bolli’s first job in Washington, but he said he spent a summer in Vancouver and has a brother-in-law who lives in Seattle.

Bolli said he applied for city manager jobs around the country, but that Covington’s young market and “excellent commercial base” drew him to the city.

“It seemed like a really well managed city,” he said. “Derek (Matheson) and the other officials did a great job. There’s a lot of momentum in the city with economic development. It had a lot of what we were looking for.”

Bolli said it’s important to be “smart about growth” and believes in prioritizing the city’s Town Center project that will give the city a more vibrant, walkable downtown.

“Being apart of really creating the identity of a relatively new city is exciting for me,” he said.

Bolli said he hopes to foster a working environment of “innovation and freedom of thought.” Besides development of the town center project, Bolli mentioned maintaining relationships with legislators, transportation and fostering partnerships as his priorities.

“The community’s priorities will be my priorities and that’s how I will proceed,” he said.

City officials considered Matheson an even-mannered city manager during his seven years in Covington, helping to grow the city’s economy, build new streets and bring in businesses.

Councilman Joseph Cimaomo, Jr. said Bolli wowed the council with the background knowledge he’d gleaned while researching the city. Cimaomo said the passion and the way Bolli immediately bought into the “we” aspect of the city sold them on his sincerity.

“We hit a gold mine with Derek and I think we hit another gold mine with Regan,” Cimaomo said.

Bolli said he hopes to find a solid balance between making city government as efficient as business in the private sector, while also being transparent for the public.

“If you can move at the speed of business and process their requests like is done in private sector, that is fundamental in going forward,” he said. “I think it’s good to be methodical and make sure everything is thought out. But we also need to learn the value of movement.”