Swain Commission Chair abruptly resigns
Swain County Commission Chairman was conspicuously absent at the Aug. 19 meeting. Sitting in his seat is Vice Chair Tanner Lawson.
Lily Levin photo
Swain County Commissioner Chairman Kevin Seagle has announced his resignation, effective Aug. 31. Seagle.
Ahead of the announcement, Seagle was absent from the board’s Aug. 19 meeting, cited “unfounded accusations” and “personal attacks” in a letter detailing his decision “with a heavy heart but a clear conscience” dated Aug. 15.
Seagle, a Republican, has operated Kevin Seagle Ministries since 2013. He is a building inspector by trade and since 2023 has owned and operated a development consultancy called Smoky Mountain Consultative Services.
First elected to the Swain commission in 2018, Seagle finished second in a field of four with just enough votes to claim one of two seats on commission that year. In 2022, Seagle ousted incumbent Chair Ben Bushyhead with 58% of the vote.
Seagle’s absence wasn’t mentioned until the end of the Aug. 19 meeting.
“I’m sure all of you got the letter,” said Commission Vice Chair Lawson, who occupied Seagle’s normal seat. “We are working with the attorney and [University of North Carolina] School of Government to make sure the process that has to happen will be right. We want to make sure that we do it the right way. I want to make sure we do it right and do it legal.”
Related Items
Meade returns to Mountain Layers
All aboard ‘The Polar Express’
Western North Carolina voters look to move forward
Kirkland sworn in, transparency questions remain
In a county embroiled in controversy after the indictment and sudden retirement of former Sheriff Curtis Cochran on multiple sexual assault charges, the chairman’s resignation is yet another bump in county government’s uncertain road going forward. But is Seagle’s resignation actually unusual, and what steps will be taken to fill his chair?
Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper thought Seagle’s no-show on Aug. 19, in itself, wasn’t out of the ordinary for someone in his position.
“People miss meetings on vacation. They’re somewhere for work,” Cooper explained. As for Seagle’s resignation, it’s also “not that unusual,” Cooper said, adding that commissioners might resign when they are planning to move somewhere else.
“But the ‘accusations’ and the ‘clear conscience’ language, yes, [that’s] noteworthy” — and not all that typical.
In North Carolina law, when a chairman’s seat is vacated, there are multiple options.
The rest of the board may choose a temporary replacement for that spot, which they can do first by naming an entirely new appointee as chairman. Alternatively, Cooper noted, the board might also name “a current commissioner to the seat, which would set off a second vacancy to be filled.” State law requires that any appointee “be of the same political party as the member being replaced.” Accordingly, Swain’s next chairman must also be a Republican, and any additional vacancy must be filled by a member of the same party, too.
Swain County has an Oct. 30 deadline — 60 days following the vacancy — to appoint someone via one of these two methods. If commissioners are unable to decide within that allotted time, the clerk will report the vacancy to the county clerk of superior court, who will then move to fill the seat in no more than 10 days.
The temporary replacement will serve as appointed until the new term following the next general election. Swain County holds commissioner elections every two years, and any biannual general election for the board will trigger an appointee’s term limit, so in 2026, the new commissioner can choose whether to run again.
Lawson will continue to “act in the absence or disability of the chairman” until the board fills that spot.
