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Sylva manager McHargue resigns
By Carey King
 Sylva’s first-ever town manager is going home to Statesville.
Richard McHargue announced his resignation, effective June 10, to town board members last Thursday.
He will leave Sylva for a job in the Iredell County planning department.
Town leaders agreed to begin looking for an interim to fill the position, as a search for a permanent manager may take up to six months. Board members will meet with a personnel advisor from the N.C. League of Municipalities at 1 p.m. today (Thursday) at Town Hall to begin that process.
“I wish to thank the citizens of this community for their support and concern for local affairs,” McHargue said in a prepared statement. “It is through this public participation that communities are sustained and managed effectively.”
He also thanked town leaders and staff for their work during his term of service.
“We’re going to miss people here and this community. We’ve enjoyed it. I’ve grown as a person and as a professional, and I mean that,” he said.
McHargue moved to Jackson County in the summer of 2000 when his wife, Jackie, accepted a job at Western Carolina University as director of judicial affairs. He completed graduate studies, then took the position of Sylva Partners in Renewal director in September of that year.
A year and a half later, McHargue made the switch to town manager after Sylva board members changed the town charter to a manager-council model of government. Before that position was created, Sylva’s day-to-day matters were executed by the town clerk at the direction of board members, who met once a month.
During McHargue’s tenure, town leaders have upped their one monthly session to two, adding 10 a.m. meetings on third Thursdays to their regular 7 p.m. sessions on the first Thursday.
“You have brought the Town of Sylva to a professional level,” Mayor Brenda Oliver told McHargue. “It’s something that we wanted for a long time.”
The greatest change he’s seen during his time here, McHargue said, is the increasing population in Jackson County and at Western Carolina University.
“The growth outside the town limits is having an impact on the town because those people drive through, they go shopping, they go to the doctor,” McHargue said. “We’re having to look at a lot more growth management techniques than we were before.”
Growth to his own family, however, is one of the primary reasons McHargue is returning home. The McHargues have a 10-week-old daughter, Avery, and the Statesville move will allow Jackie McHargue to stay at home with her.
“After we had the baby, we kind of felt like it was the best thing to do,” McHargue said.
Another reason for the change is that McHargue’s family homeplace has been vacant since his grandmother moved to a nursing home a year ago. With no aunts, uncles, sisters or brothers, the house fell to him, McHargue said.
Though the home is surrounded by 55 acres, McHargue said he doesn’t see much farming in his future.
“Nothing more than hay,” he said.
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