INSIDE: Heavy lifting, Falcon winter sports previews, A7
Record South Whidbey
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2012 | Vol. 88, No. 96 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
Bank robber hits Clinton Wells Fargo Ferry chief apologetic Ruse tried to draw police to Smuggler’s to angry crowd Cove Road BY Jim Larsen Record editor
BY Jessie Stensland Staff reporter The Island County Sheriff’s Office released images of the masked man who robbed the Wells Fargo Bank in Clinton last Wednesday afternoon. A man wearing a cloth mask entered the bank and demanded money, warning the employees that he wanted “no dye packs” and “no problems,” according to Detective Ed Wallace with the Island County Sheriff’s Office. The robber did not display a weapon and left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money. Three employees were at the bank at the time, Detective Rick Felici said. Detectives believe that the robbery may be tied to an earlier bogus 911 call from the phone booth at Classic Road in Greenbank. A man called at about 5 p.m. and claimed he had killed someone at an address on Smugglers Cove Road. Deputies responded to the home and the phone booth, but found nothing amiss. However, Wallace said they were suspicious and left some law enforcement officers on the South End in case the call was a ruse. Sure enough, an employee at the bank called and reported the robbery at 5:55 p.m. The bank is about 15 miles from the phone booth. The robber was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and a white cloth mask. One of the bank tellers believes that the red SUV seen leaving the area was a Saturn VUE. The suspect was wearing a mask, but is described as a white male, about 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. Wells Fargo Bank provided minimal information about the robbery. Steve Clendenin, branch manager in Clinton, said he just left before the robbery occurred. “I missed it by two minutes,” he said. He was on his way to an “off-site appointment” when an employee
At left is a surveillance camera’s image provided by the Island County Sheriff’s Office of a person robbing the Clinton Wells Fargo bank Wednesday evening. Above is a deputy’s car, one of two stationed to block traffic into the bank’s parking lot while employees and detectives worked inside, processing the scene of the crime. called and informed him about the incident. “It was only about five minutes,” he said of the time from when he left the bank to when he received the call. A Wells Fargo security representative was at the bank Thursday and advised Clendenin to say no more. Inquiries were directed to Lara Underhill, communications manager for Wells Fargo in Western Washington. “We don’t comment on robberies,” Underhill said from her Seattle office. “We don’t want to impede the investigation.” Locally, news of the robbery seems to have traveled slowly. Carol Flax, president of the Clinton Progressive Association, got the news where many people do. “I just heard about it from my hairdresser yesterday,” she said Friday morning. “It’s kind of creepy.” This may be the first time the bank has been robbed in all its incarnations. Sue Davenny worked there for 21 years, first as Island Savings & Loan, then
InterWest and finally Wells Fargo, retiring in 2000. She hadn’t heard about the robbery until told about it Friday. “Yikes, that’s bad,” she said. In all her years as a teller she never had to deal with a bank robber. The Wells Fargo branch is located on Highway 525 at the intersection of Deer Lake Road. Island County Sheriff Mark Brown said detectives are awaiting enhanced video from the Department of Transportation that may show the robber and the getaway vehicle. He said detectives have limited evidence and are hoping to receive additional information from the public. Anyone with knowledge of the robbery is asked to call tips in at 321-4400. Record editor Jim Larsen contributed to this story.
David Moseley couldn’t have been more uncomfortable had his head and arms been placed in stocks as an angry crowd threw rotten tomatoes at him. But he never made a dash for the door, instead answering the complaints as best he could while promising to do better in the future. The scene was Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland where a meeting room with approximately 50 chairs was filled with ferry users, while others had to stand. The center of attention Thursday night was Moseley, assistant secretary for the state Department of Transportation, Ferries Division. Moseley sweated as the crowd tossed one figurative rotten tomato after another in his direction. The ferry system, under heavy financial pressure, recently announced plans to cut the last late night ferry run from Clinton (12:30 a.m. departure) to Mukilteo and from Mukilteo to Clinton (1:05 a.m. departure). Moseley told the crowd the cost saving would be about $1 million annually. “It impacts the least number of riders in a way that saves the most money,” he said. A newspaper delivery woman stood and objected, saying issues of the Seattle Times and New York Times might have to be driven around Deception Pass. “You won’t have your papers in the morning,” she told the crowd. Others pointed out that some people need the late ferries for work, while Sue Ellen White cited Friday nights as a particular problem when islanders go to the mainland for entertain-
‘We’ve let our customers down and I apologize for that.’
— David Moseley, State Ferries chief
ment and catch the last ferry home. Some suggested that a morning run be cut instead. Other service cuts are proposed throughout the system. “The system is not financially stable,” Moseley told the dissatisfied crowd, which has endured a number of cancelled ferry trips recently due to staffing mixups, as well as years of annual fare increases. Financial troubles date back to 2000 when voters approved a flat $30 rate for the motor vehicle excise tax, which until then had pumped millions of dollars into the ferry system. Since then, Moseley said, the DOT has transferred more than $1 billion from other projects into the ferry system to keep it afloat, but no permanent ferry funding source has been found. In the present biennium, the DOT is subsidizing the ferry system by $147 million. He hopes a “transportation package” will be passed by the 2013 Legislature to solve the problem. One reason for hope, he said, is that Governor-elect Jay Inslee lives on Bainbridge Island. “He uses the ferries a lot,” he said. But the crowd seemed fed up with excuses, service cuts and canceled runs due to staffing issues. Moseley said the Clinton to Mukilteo route has had 12 one-way trips canceled and three others delayed in See Ferry, A10