West appointed interim Haywood tax collector
A familiar face is returning to county government sooner than expected, as former tax collector Greg West steps back into the role following Sebastian Cothran’s sudden resignation.
“I would just like to say thank you,” West said. “I appreciate all the support I received during the Primary Election. I’m humbled and very appreciative. I look forward to the opportunity to get back in the office and work hard for the citizens of Haywood County.
It’s my home; I’m proud to be here, and I again want to say thank you to everyone, and I’m looking forward to the next four years.”
His early appointment follows the abrupt March 24 resignation of Sebastian Cothran, a first-term Republican whose tenure as the state’s only elected tax collector began with a high-profile 2022 victory while he was still a college student and only 21 years old.
The incumbent he beat — West — was a Democrat at the time and had previously notched the highest tax collection rate in county history, 98.35%.
Although Cothran’s collection rates remained solid, they declined each year and never surpassed the benchmark set by West.
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West, now a Republican, bested two opponents in the March 3 Republican Primary Election after Cothran opted not to run for reelection. No other candidates filed for the race, so West was slated to take office later this year pending his likely victory in November.
Once Cothran’s resignation became known, West was the obvious choice to fill out the rest of Cothran’s term, but the vacancy prompted legal and procedural questions — particularly over who had the authority to fill the unexpired term.
Some initially believed the Haywood County Republican Party would submit a binding recommendation, as is common for other vacancies in partisan offices.
County Attorney Frank Queen — citing state law, a county attorney’s memo and a 1998 attorney general opinion — found that the sole authority to appoint an interim replacement rests with commissioners.
Two other procedural issues had to be addressed before anyone could be appointed.
On April 6, Finance Director Kristian Owen told commissioners in a meeting that per state law, she’d performed an audit and basically “closed out” Cothran’s books without discovering anything unusual.
“We always have these conspiracy theorists that’s always chumming the waters with misinformation,” Commissioner Tommy Long said to Owen. “So, just for the record, we are required by law to do this, in unusual circumstances, and there were no findings of any discrepancies?”
“No findings at all,” Owen said.
As of Cothran’s last day in office, Owen said the collection rate for the current fiscal year was 96.14%.
Commissioner Jennifer Best asked Owen how that figure compared to previous years. Owen said it couldn’t be.
“This is an unusual circumstance,” she said. “We don’t usually have a mid-year settlement rate.”
There are, however, still almost three months left in the current fiscal year for property owners to make tax payments, so that figure will climb. Collection rates over the past decade have generally hovered around 98%.
The other procedural step was to obtain a professional bond for the new tax collector, essentially an insurance-backed financial guarantee required by North Carolina law to protect the county against losses from errors, misconduct or failure to properly handle public funds.
The amount of the bond can be thought of as the perceived the risk associated with the person bonded.
Owen said there were no issues getting West bonded, and the turnaround on the $100,000 bond was same-day — something that hadn’t been the case in the past.
“I just gotta say this, we have had trouble getting tax collectors bonded, and it’s nice not to have that issue because we have somebody very qualified,” said Chair Kevin Ensley.
In 2014, an incoming tax collector wasn’t able to be sworn in because he couldn’t obtain his $410,000 bond in time.
When Cothran took office in 2022, his age prompted heightened scrutiny around his required bond, but unlike his predecessor, he secured a $250,000 bond without delay and took office as scheduled.
West will be re-sworn later this year once he’s certified as the winner of his Nov. 3 race and will then serve out his four-year term.
