Huntington Woods Commission Agrees to Consider Dispatch, Jail Services Contract with Ferndale

The Huntington Woods City Commission decided Tuesday night to further consider an unsolicited proposal from Ferndale to provide dispatch and jail services for the .

Huntington Woods dispatch and jail services are currently facilitated by Berkley at the cost of $99,314 a year. The new proposal would cost $60,000 a year, revenue that would come to Ferndale, saving Huntington Woods about $40,000.

Huntington Woods City Manager Alex Allie said Tuesday that a six month notification is required if Huntington Woods were to opt out of its contract with Berkley and a new agreement would need to be drawn up with Ferndale.

"I don't know what will happen," Allie said.

Ferndale Police Chief Tim Collins said if the contract were to be approved, the extra workload would be manageable.

"I feel confident we can handle the additional workload if this agreement is approved," he said. "When this was proposed I was asked to look at Huntington Woods' 911 call load, non-emergency call load, Computer Aided Dispatch load and their prisoner numbers. If this is approved, there will be several meetings to work out the details of how it will work, but the basics are doable."

Ferndale City Manager April McGrath said this potential proposal is part of the city exploring collaborating efforts with neighboring cities.

"We're always looking at options to do better," she said. "We're always going to be looking at sharing services (with neighboring communities) now. When we have talks with other cities, that's the first thing they ask us -- What we're doing to share services."

Read more about Ferndale's proposal and its push for shared services .