The Winston-Salem City Council met on Monday, October 7, 2024, at 6:00 PM. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Allen Joines, with all nine council members present. The meeting included proclamations, a consent agenda with one item removed, several public hearings, and a closed session. The meeting adjourned at 7:06 PM.
City Manager Pate provided updates on:
A motion was made to go into closed session pursuant to N.C.G.S. §143-318.11(a)(1) and (6) to discuss applicants for city attorney and other personnel matters. The motion passed 8-0. The closed session ended, and a motion to adjourn was approved unanimously.
Good evening. I'm Alan Joins, Mayor of Winston Salem. And I call to order this meeting of the Winston Salem City Council and ask the city clerk to call the roll, please. Councilmember Larson. President. Councilmember Clark. Here. Councilmember Mundy. Present. Councilmember Scipio. Mayor Pratim Adams. Here. Councilmember Taylor. Present. Councilmember McIntosh? Here. And Councilmember Burke. Here. Thank you very much. Would you please join the City Council meeting a moment of silence? Of course it goes without saying we're keeping our good friends and colleagues in the Western part of the state in their prayers every day. Would you please join the city council meeting the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the United States of America to the Republic. One nation under God individual with liberty and justice. Thank you. Our Sergeant Arms tonight is Lieutenant L.A. Viewell. Lieutenant, thank you for uh being with us tonight. Um I would like to recognize our city manager, Mr. Pate for his uh update. Uh thank you uh your Honor. A couple of things that uh we want to to go over tonight, and um uh first I just want to give a just a quick note about uh uh Hurricane Helena uh impacts and and what the city is doing. The city has been playing an active role in trying to assist our colleagues in the western part of the state. We've had uh upwards in the in the upper 20s in our fire department that have been uh in the area. Uh 60 percent of our emergency management team is actually up there assisting other uh areas right now uh up in the middle in the middle twenties in terms of our police officers that are in that area now. There will be some rotation coming back and forth. Uh we know our utilities folks are on standby right now, will probably be deployed here in the next uh week or so to go out uh to the west to help with some of the the devastation that's going on in the utility system. So it it is it is very much as everybody's seeing a huge tragedy in that area. Uh the city has provided some other supplies to those. Our emergency management folks have reported back on some of the specific needs and some of the areas where they're at, and there's been some work and some uh reaching out to some of our local vendors or local businesses to actually help provide some things like specific types of clothing and other things to the to the area. So there's been a real great outpouring of community service towards helping our folks in western North Carolina, and I want to uh again applaud our employees that have already spent time going out there and being a part of this. This is not an not a typical assignment for anyone when they get there. They typically have to be self-contained. They're not don't necessarily have a place to stay, they don't have places where they can go get food to eat. Uh so it's it is it is really a labor of love for these folks uh in helping their other communities. So we do appreciate the the efforts that they're putting into that, and um so as they're coming back, they'll have lots of pictures and stories to share, I'm sure, of what they've seen in that area, but uh just wanted to mention that the city is playing a significant role. The city may be involved even more over the next few weeks, depending on some things that the feds might want to do. So we'll keep you informed as that uh comes up. The other item um just on to start with, I wanted to talk about is um I I did have the opportunity to go to the to the fair on several occasions um this weekend. It's uh it's a great event.