BY SUSIE CURRIE — After two years abroad, former Hyattsville mayor Bill Gardiner has returned to the area to become the assistant city manager of College Park, a job he started on January 13. Gardiner, who served as mayor from 2003 to 2011, moved to Chile shortly after the 2011 election when his wife, Anita, was offered a teaching position at a university in Santiago. “We always planned to return to the Hyattsville area, and the opportunity to work for the City of College Park is wonderful,” wrote Gardiner in an email. “The mayor’s role in Hyattsville is very different from this position, but much of the underlying work is similar — budgets, planning, legislation [and] working with the community.”