John Boyle

ASH

ASHEVILLE – The N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles has named a new director for an Asheville License Plate Agency office that recently closed.

Marchant Harman, a 1993 graduate of UNC Asheville who has been working in the auto industry, will head up the office, according to DMV spokesman Brian Smith. Harman will be a contractor with the DMV, not a direct division employee.

The LPA office at 142 Hendersonville Road closed June 27, resulting in long lines at the remaining LPA office in Asheville, in Innsbruck Mall.

The Hendersonville Road office closed when David Sharpton retired after 20 years, closing out his contract with the DMV.

Smith said Harman’s office should open this fall. The DMV is trying to expedite the process because of high demand with only one office open, but Harman will have to hire and train his employees before opening, Smith said.

Harman has not determined where the office will be, or if it will be in the same spot on Hendersonville Road.

Sharpton said via email earlier this week that he was required in his contract “to give 60 days notice of my intent to discontinue my contract.”

“On March 28, I gave my notice and the date of my office closure was set at May 30,” he said, adding that the notice was announced in an April 2 press release and published in the Citizen-Times. “I volunteered to stay open past May 30 to minimize any disruption in service and ideally have the new contractor reopen the office in its present location. By mid-June, DMV was unable to provide me with an estimated date of when they’d have a new contractor chosen. I was down to five employees (which is too few to run an office this size with vacations etc. coming up) so I decided that I could not continue to stay open past June 27.”

DMV made the announcement that the office would close June 23.

Smith said several other regional LPAs can help customers with tag, title and registration work until a new office is established. Those locations are:

Asheville, 85 Tunnel Road, Suite 16B, 252-8526.

Hendersonville, 145 Four Seasons Mall, 692-0648.

Pisgah Forest, 69 New Hendersonville Highway, Suite 8, 883-3251.

Marshall, 133 S. Main St., Suite 102, 649-3528.

Waynesville, 80 Waynesville Plaza, 452-1577.