For the first time in 17 years, Winston-Salem has a new city manager. Patrick Pate sat down with City Editor Cambridge to talk about his priorities and plans for the city. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You just started your new role in November. How are you settling in?
It’s been a whirlwind month. There’s lots of things to see and do, so I’m still in that discovery mode.
You’re no stranger to Winston-Salem, having served as a budget manager in the mid-to-late 1980s. What has changed about the city since you last lived here?
I think the downtown has really come alive in new and vibrant ways since I was here earlier in my career. The mix of the business community has changed quite a bit since that time.
You will deliver a city manager update at each city council meeting. Where did that idea come from and what do you see as the importance of that time?
It’s something that I’ve done in my previous role as city manager in my previous community in Virginia. The real emphasis on that is to be able to educate the community on things that are happening — good things that are happening, events that we’ve been a part of, and to give Council an update on things that they would be interested in seeing until we have the next council meeting.
Pate has already started delivering remarks at the start of each city council meeting.
Photo courtesy of @CityofWS via X
What do you think are Winston-Salem’s top three strengths?
We’ve got a good diversity of businesses and industries here. I think we have a real strength in the quality of life and that encompasses a lot of different things. I think the university system — people don’t always think of us as a university town — but we really have a strength in our diversity of universities, so that’s a real tremendous asset that we have that we need to continue to let people know about.
What have you identified as challenges the city currently faces? Do you have a strategy yet to tackle any of them?
The perception of public safety in certain parts of the community — I always caveat that with there’s no place in the community I’ve been that I don’t feel safe — but there are clearly areas that people have more concerns, and so we need to address that and make sure everybody understands that we’re a safe community.
I think a second issue that this council and the community has really talked about is the concept of home affordability — being able to have a place where you can feel comfortable, that you can afford to live. Making sure we’ve got that good quality of life going on in the community is probably a second issue.
I think we do have some work to do on updating our infrastructure. I think there has been some deferred maintenance — road paving is one that I’ve seen. There’s certain parks that we need to continue to work on upgrading.
As city manager, one of your responsibilities is hiring. Do you have plans to address recent hiring and retention issues?
We are in the process of doing a pay classification study for the city to look at that exact issue. One of the key issues you have to do is, you have to pay competitively to bring people in. There’s any number of positions that are out there that we’re looking to fill and to hire. Like many other organizations around us, the labor pool has shrunk a little bit, so we’re competing broader than we have been to bring people in.
Having said that, I’ve done two orientations with new employees since I’ve been here. There’s probably been at least 60 new employees that we brought on just in the last month here in the city, so I’m seeing some real progress that we’re making, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.
Pate is living downtown while searching for a home.
Photo courtesy of Tim Hutchins via @tim_hutch
What are your top three priorities for 2024?
One of my real issues is creating a culture that encourages folks to stay here in the city and to be able to build a career and a life here in the community.
A second priority for me is that we’re always in budget prep mode. I understand the importance of putting together a budget plan that matches with a strategic plan for the community. We’ll be in an election cycle for city council in this upcoming year, as well. It’ll be really working with the current Council to understand and to put together those priorities and then preparing for what will be a new council for the next four years.
A third priority of mine is making sure we’re thinking about ourselves as Winston-Salem, not as this community, or that community, or downtown, but we’re all one community from a city government standpoint. We’ve got to figure out — what are those issues that are pain points in one part of the community, but maybe not the others, and work to alleviate those so everybody feels like they’re a part of this growing tide.
What do you want citizens of Winston-Salem to know about you — personally or professionally?
I’ve always been a dedicated public servant my whole life. My philosophy is always that we’re here to serve the community and, through our elected officials who are setting the policies and the goals that they want us to achieve, we’re going to do our best to make sure that happens for everybody in the community. My family and I are excited to be in Winston-Salem and we’re looking forward to seeing all the ways that we can make this community better.
