City manager’s pick for new police chief is lifelong resident
Gacioch recommends council appoint Capt. Dennis Emmi to role
Ferndale Police Capt. Dennis Emmi, who has lived in the community his whole life, is set to be the city’s new chief.
City Manager Joseph Gacioch is recommending that the City Council on Monday appoint Emmi to take over as police chief on New Year’s Day.
In a memo to councilmembers, Gacioch said Police Chief Vincent Palazzolo is retiring Jan. 1.
“The right police chief is a difference-maker in our community,” Gacioch said, “not just in managing crisis situations and preserving public safety, but in setting a daily example of integrity in all public interactions ... community policing and recognizing the importance of equal justice under the law.”
Emmi, 46, will meet those challenges with honor and humility, the city manager added.
Emmi has deep roots in the police department and the community. His mother is a former Ferndale city clerk and his father, a Ferndale business owner, served on the City Council for a term in the late 1990s.
“I remember growing up here when there were massage parlors and prostitution, and Nine Mile Road downtown had vacant buildings and a few good
Thai restaurants,”
Emmi said. “The community went from a tough, blue-collar Democratic moderate town and turned into a trendy, hip, more Democratic liberal place over the years. It’s like a complete transformation and I’m completely proud of all the changes.”
Similarly, Ferndale’s police department has changed with the times. Out of over 500 police agencies statewide, the department is now one of only 29 that are accredited through the Michigan Association of Police Chiefs, he said.
Accreditation came with the implementation of written directives, policies, and procedures and professional standards.
“We started to modernize our policies and took a big step in 2016 and redid our policy book,” Emmi said. “It really kick-started the effort that led to being accredited.”
He’s worked multiple jobs in the police department from patrol officer, SWAT instructor and detective to the honor guard, sergeant, lieutenant and captain.
Emmi got his start as a department service aide before he joined as an officer.
“You shagged coffee, washed the cars, and were taught how to dispatch,” he said. “I got to see behind the curtain howthe department operated and I loved it. It felt like the perfect job.”
After he was hired as an officer in 1997, he said he liked policework even more.
“I volunteered for everything you could,” Emmi said. “I never refused an opportunity.”
The police department in a relatively tight-knit town like Ferndale is more personal than in bigger cities.
Emmi said Ferndale residents want police to be professional, compassionate and competent. That means avoiding mistakes that have stirred protests nationwide this year in other larger cities following the policeinvolved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis inl ate May.
“Problems havehappened in departments where there is a lack of professionalism, accountability, good supervision and, most of all, transparency,” Emmi said. “The vast majority of police departments are professionally run agencies.”
Ferndale police were the first department in Oakland County to have body cameras.
Still, a key part of police work in Ferndale involves engaging with residents, business owners and visitors.
“We remember that we are people first,” Emmi said. “I think you accomplish more with relationships than with authority.”