New City Manager Shakes Hands with Ferndale

Ferndale's new city manager, April McGrath, missed the July power outage in Ferndale that spanned one of the hottest periods in southeast Michigan in the last 15 years.

Not to be left out, she was at the helm for the , brought down dozens and dozens of trees, 80 power lines, 70 electrical poles and destroy more than 100 houses.

"I was impressed with how well the city worked together," she said at her reception at the on Monday. "Everyone communicated very well, from department heads to council."

Monday's reception wasn't about the storm, it was about meeting the residents. "People want to know who the city manager is and it's important I know who the people are, to put a name to the face," she said.

McGrath became . She spent the last four years in Ypsilanti, a city she says is very similar to Ferndale. Most recently, she was the assistant city manager there.

One of the similarities, McGrath points out, is how involved the community is and the reception was a testament of that. New and longtime residents came to talk with McGrath.

"We've moved from Ferndale to Ferndale," Nick Schultz said. He and his wife Carrie Randall moved from one Ferndale home to another because the expecting parents needed more space. They've lived in the city for about eight years.

Schultz said they came to meet McGrath. "We're having our first child and we want to be involved in the city as much as we can," Randall said.

Helen Weber, who has been in Ferndale for 40 years, said she wanted to meet McGrath. "I've only seen her on the screen," Weber said, laughing, referring to the televised City Council meetings. "I wanted to meet her, get a chance to know her."

Some of McGrath's challenges moving forward, she said, will be financial.

"I think that that financial challenges will be here a long time," McGrath said in August. "We need to be prepared for when the sunsets. We were given a gift by the community and we need to be good stewards of that."

Other items that McGrath will tackle are technology upgrades in City Hall that are expected to increase efficient as well as strategic planning. "We'll be doing strategic planning with council for what Ferndale will look like in 2015," she said.