'Backup' Pleasant Ridge Fire Agreement with Berkley OK'd

For the last 88 years, Ferndale has provided fire protection to Pleasant Ridge. That relationship, however, could be changing as Pleasant Ridge has entered into a fire agreement with Berkley and is looking to eventually combine with the Berkley public safety department.

"I think this is the first time we're going to take a small step toward it," Berkley City Manager Jane Bais-DiSessa told the standing room-only crowd at City Hall, adding that Pleasant Ridge had requested the action be taken.

The fire agreement passed Monday night ensures that services would not be disrupted if the Ferndale Fire Department contract does not continue or if Pleasant Ridge decides to opt out before a public safety collaboration with Berkley is settled.

Pleasant Ridge has to give Ferndale a two-year notice before it can terminate the contract. That date is June 30.

"After two years, if we have a public safety department ready to go, we won't need the fire protection agreement," Pleasant Ridge City Manager Sherry Ball said Monday afternoon. "If we don't have public safety ready, we'll still have fire protection."

Bais-DiSessa said that public hearings would be held to educate residents about the nascent Public Safety plan before any decision is made.

Ball said a public safety department is something the city has been exploring for a while. A public safety department consists of officers that are trained in both police and fire protection services. Berkley and Oak Park both have public safety departments. Ball said Pleasant Ridge is exploring a collaborative agreement with the Berkley public safety department to service both Pleasant Ridge and Berkley, Ball said.

"We have to do the best and the most cost effective action for Pleasant Ridge," Ball said.

Berkley Councilwoman Lisa Platt Auensen, however, sought to clarify that the council was not currently voting on a merger of the Pleasant Ridge Police Department with the Berkley Public Safety Department. Nor was the council voting for Pleasant Ridge to terminate its agreement with Ferndale, she said.

"This is simply a backup fire plan," Platt Auensen said.

But Ferndale Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan, who also is a Pleasant Ridge resident, appeared indignant over the implication of the fire agreement. "I'd like the record set straight that we'd never not provide Pleasant Ridge (with fire services), regardless of what kind of contract negotiations are going on," he told Berkley City Council.

Pleasant Ridge's contract with Ferndale cost them about $300,000 a year. It has been as high as $430,000, Sullivan said. Ferndale Interim City Manager Mark Wollenweber said that the contract is continually being renegotiated. Sullivan added that in the fiscal year ending 2013, the contract will cost Pleasant Ridge $265,000

Under the agreement with Berkley, Pleasant Ridge would pay Berkley $104,000 for fire services in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013; $109,000 in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2014; and a price to be set in 2015, if needed.

Sullivan and Wollenweber wouldn't speculate on what the loss of the contract would mean to Ferndale. "It might reduce our workforce," Sullivan said Monday before the meeting. "But it hasn't been considered yet."

Ball made it clear that this move isn't reflective of Ferndale fire services. "We have a working relation with the city of Ferndale. We've been pleased with the fire department," she said. "We are simply exploring alternative methods of services. We contract out our entire DPW, library services and dispatch (as an example).

"Yet, this may never come to fruition."

Check Ferndale Patch for more updates on this story.