Ferndale city staff proposed a restructuring of the communications function designed to reduce cost while restoring responsiveness in resident-facing services such as SeeClickFix, phone and email responses and the city newsletter.

Assistant City Manager James and Communications Specialist Riley Coleman presented the plan, which would eliminate the communications director position and create a communications manager (promoted from the existing specialist), while refocusing two specialist roles: one to serve as a public information officer for public safety (police, fire, DPW) and one to specialize in customer service and citywide communications tasks. Staff estimated the change would save about $55,000 annually while keeping SeeClickFix and the print newsletter in place.

Council requested more data. Council members asked for benchmarking against similarly sized jurisdictions, a realistic list of functions that could be outsourced and vendor cost estimates, and a clearer operational work plan showing how the reorganization would improve phone and SeeClickFix response times. Several members praised Riley Coleman’s work and supported promoting from within but asked for more evidence to justify new headcount and to rule out outsourcing without numbers to compare.

Why it matters: Staff and residents told the council that communication response times have worsened since departures left the department understaffed. The proposed changes would be structural — shifting some supervisory duties to an assistant city manager and reassigning day-to-day communications to an in-house manager and two specialists. If approved, the plan would affect how residents report issues and how quickly the city acknowledges and closes service requests.

Next steps: Council voted to postpone a final decision to the Aug. 11 meeting and directed staff to prepare: external benchmarking of comparable cities’ communications staffing; a cost comparison for outsourced communications services; a short-term plan to improve SeeClickFix and phone-tree routing; and a clearer mapping of department responsibilities under the proposed structure.

Ending: Staff said the city can return the communications plan with the requested detail and flagged that the Aug. 11 meeting would be the soonest practical date to approve a reorganization and begin any hiring.