Bill Pate to seek re-election
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 4, 2015 1:46 PM
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Bill Pate
Wayne County District 5 Commissioner Bill Pate has announced he will seek a second term.
Pate, a Republican, is a Pikeville native and a graduate of East Carolina University. He and his wife, Linda, a retired teacher, have a daughter.
He retired from the N.C. Employment Security Commission with 33 years of service ending his career as manager of the Goldsboro office.
"I decided after 32 years it was time for me to find new endeavors," Pate said. "I didn't know it was going to be as a county commissioner, but it turned out is was a challenge that I accepted, and for the most part I have enjoyed it."
Pate, 59, said he has always been project oriented and for the past several years that project has been an agriculture and convention center.
"I have got to see that through," he said. "It is not so much that I just want to run for re-election. I want to finish my projects that I started. That is still a big thing for me. But of course we have a lot of things we are doing.
"I want to see the (Wayne Community College) Advanced Manufacturing Center up and running. It has not moved as quickly as I would have liked to, but I think it is beginning to get the momentum it needed."
But Pate said securing broadband Internet for the entire county will be one of the "biggest things" he will focus on in the coming year.
The county's schools have broadband Internet and more and more students need that connection to do their homework, he said.
"Well, if you don't live somewhere that has broadband Internet, what do you do?" he said. "We have talked to the schools about maybe leaving the media centers open for those kids to come back. That is sort of a short-range solution.
"Cable is not available (countywide), especially in my district and some of the other districts as well. You can't build a home business. You can't grow a business. Businesses will not relocate to areas that don't have it."
Pate said he had seen a presentation about a similar problem in another state. The solution there was to use the 911 towers to provide wireless Internet.
Pate said he was initially told by the company building a 911 tower in eastern Wayne County that the same solution could not be used to provide Internet services to the Seven Springs area.
He said he did not give up on the idea and just about a month and half ago he had spoken with someone through the governor's office who told him it was "very possible."
The county itself is forbidden by law to provide the service, but it can allow Internet providers to position equipment on county 911 towers, he said.
"This is more of a long-range solution, I think, and the cost to the county is really nothing," Pate said. "So that is something you are really going to see me pushing on in the coming months."
However, the agriculture and convention center will remain his "No. 1 thing," Pate said.
The project is well supported by the entire board and people in the community including some who have been championing such a facility for many years, he said.
It has taken longer than "ever imagined," due in part to the effort and time it took to get an acceptable countywide hotel occupancy tax through the General Assembly, he said.
"But we have come a long way," he said.
Pate said he will continue to work with another project dear to his heart -- the commission's Veterans Advisory Board that he had a hand in creating.
"I think we have made some real strides in connecting our veterans population in Wayne County with the county," he said. "It has given me the opportunity with this Veterans Advisory Board to be part of the Purple Heart (Banquet). I have been co-chair for two years in a row. I am heavily involved in the (Wayne County Veterans and) Patriots Coalition. So I have got to know a lot more veterans and more about what they do.
"Anything that we can do to support our veterans I think is real important. Here we are with Seymour Johnson (Air Force Base) and we have a big veterans population. Now we have a state veterans cemetery."
The county has make progress on its facilities but continues to have infrastructure needs as far as county buildings, he said.
"Somebody asked me the other day, 'You guys have spent a lot of money when you said you won't going to,'" Pate said. "I said, 'Well, let's put it this way. If it was your house and you found a major leak in the roof, what are you going to do? Are you going to fix it now, or are you going to fix it when it crashes in on you?'
"You have to fix it up front to save money in the long run. I said, 'That is what we came into. We had no idea of the infrastructure issue we were facing."
For example, the county has had to put a lot of money into the jail because of a leaking roof and plumbing problems, he said.
The county is building the new jail in the right way, he said. Instead of spending $50 million to $60 million to build a huge jail, the county is spending $10 million to build the misdemeanant jail.
"That is the way I want to approach these things, a little at a time," Pate said. "I hope we are through with the real big-ticket items. But if they come up and have got to be done, then we will figure out a way to do it as fiscally responsible as we can."
Pate said he always wants to continue to work on the Highway 70 Corridor Commission and with efforts to extend Interstate 795 to I-540 in Sampson County and obtain Interstate status for U.S. 70.
"Can you imagine the economic opportunities for Wayne County and Goldsboro being in a crossroads of two Interstates?" he said.
As far as the budget and taxes, County Manager George Wood is a "master at that," Pate said.
"I don't believe we will be raising taxes," he said. "We have a good fund balance. I have a lot of confidence in George and the way he is doing that. So we will be following his lead.
"It (increase) may happen in a few years as time goes on and inflation impacts the cost of operations. I think we have about leveled off (on the tax rate)."