New Ferndale city manager ready to work with eye on government efficiency

FERNDALE — The new city manager of Ferndale said she is ready to get to work.

On Feb. 10, the Ferndale City Council approved the selection of Colleen O’Toole as its next city manager. Her contract officially was approved by the council at its Feb. 24 meeting.

Compensation between the city of Ferndale and O’Tolle was agreed at $166,272.

O’Toole already has started with the city on a part-time basis, as she and her wife welcomed their third child and she’s on parental leave. Her first full day will be March 10.

O’Toole has been familiar with Ferndale since she first moved to Michigan and saw it as a welcoming community with a great reputation. It’s something she kept in mind as she applied for the open city manager’s position.

“That’s something that, as a professional, I look for communities that align with my core values, and so that the service that I’m doing feels like I have a personal connection to it as well,” she told the Woodward Talk. “Arguably, I can’t think of a better community than Ferndale to align my personal interests and values with the community’s.”

O’Toole comes to Ferndale from Saline, where she was the city manager since December 2020. Before that, she was the city manager in Durand for three years.

She was picked over the current assistant city manager and previous interim city manager, James Krizan, who has affirmed his intention to stay in Ferndale.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m 100% committed to the city.”

Krizan is excited to work with O’Toole on future issues and to help her as she gets acclimated to Ferndale.

“I would assume we’re both going to bring different strengths to the relationship and to the city,” he said. “I’ve now got a year under my belt, so I’ve got some experience in the city that will help her as she starts to build relationships within the community and with staff. Everybody’s different, so I’m sure we’ll find exactly where we fit together, for sure.”

O’Toole spoke in her interview process about future issues that Ferndale has on the horizon, including the upcoming Headlee restoration millage vote and union contracts. She stated that how to efficiently operate a local government is very important to her and something that has a lot of attention right now.

“There’s a lot of attention on government operations and government efficiency right now, good or bad, however you choose to look at it, but that is definitely a strong suit of mine. Understanding the financial impacts of our programs and the fiduciary responsibility that we have to residents to deliver the most impactful programming and policies is very much in my wheelhouse,” O’Toole said.

“I would say absolutely those two things (the Headlee millage and union contracts) are very, very much close to the top of my list, as well as just our lead service line replacement program,” she continued. “That is another project that is going to be very costly over the life of the program, and we need to be smart about how we pursue those change outs. There’s a lot of lead services in Ferndale, and we have a responsibility to residents to make sure that we have a clear and consistent plan for how we’re going to help address those replacements.”

O’Toole also commented on what Ferndale as a community has to offer.

“There’s so much to build on here, and it’s really an opportunity to kind of show not just southeast Michigan, but the state and the country, what kind of community we can be by leading with our values and putting people first when we’re making decisions,” she said.