REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
FRIDAY, August 29, 2014 | Vol. 114, No. 35 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
Avalara makes a splash Bainbridge-based tax software company Avalara became the latest on an increasingly long list of people and groups to participate in the national ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Friday, Aug. 22. The national movement involves the dumping of a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). “This couldn’t be more personal for me,” said Avalara CEO Scott McFarlane just prior to the mass soaking of
Outcry over development continues at city meeting Residents ask Bainbridge officials to make changes BY CECILIA GARZA Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review
approximately 170 employees outside of the company’s Bainbridge office last week. “My best friend, my room-
mate, my first business partner is suffering from this horrific disease.” McFarlane said that Avalara
would donate $100 to cure research for each employee who participated.
Suspected serial burglar found in small town in Virginia BY CECILIA GARZA AND BRIAN KELLY Bainbridge Island Review
The man who Bainbridge Island police say is responsible for the biggest string of burglaries in the island’s history was captured by a fugitive task force that had help from Virginia State Police and the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office. Jason Michael Lucas was arrested Monday by the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, a group under the direction of the U.S. Marshal Service, that apprehends the most violent and dangerous fugitives in the Washington, D.C. area, Maryland and Virginia. Bainbridge police identified Lucas, 34, earlier this month as the person responsible for more than two dozen residential burglaries this spring on Bainbridge Island. Bainbridge Police Chief Matthew Hamner said the U.S. Marshals Service office in Seattle was asked to help find Lucas after a warrant was issued for his arrest. According to the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, Lucas was captured in Floyd, Virginia earlier this week. Lucas may have had family living in Virginia. Members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force chased a number of leads that ultimately brought
INSIDE: Kitsap Week
Jason Michael Lucas them to Floyd, a small town of less than 500 residents that’s located in the southwestern area of Virginia. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, law enforcement was able to identify Lucas and officers safely took him into custody without incident. Lucas was booked into the Roanoke City Jail and is being held without bail. Bainbridge police said it’s not yet confirmed when he will be seen in a Kitsap County courtroom. “We know that regardless of whether he waives extradition or fights it, he will still be extradited,” Hamner said. “We are very confident that in the very near future he will be extradited,” he said. Bainbridge police said Lucas is thought to have been involved in 25 burglaries in Kitsap County, with 24 of those break-ins occurring on Bainbridge Island. The string of burglaries stretched from March into April. Bainbridge police were able
to identify Lucas as the person a tree service person who had behind the crimes through DNA worked on her property. She samples, footprints, eyewitness likewise provided a short video accounts and pawn shop records. taken on a cell phone of Lucas According to a statement of working. A next door neighbor also told probable cause that details 10 of police they had the 25 burglarseen a suspicious ies, several of the burglarized “We are very confident green Chevrolet or homes were that in the very near Suburban Tahoe driving broken into future he will be slowly on the with a pry bar street the day of or similar tool. extradidted.” the burglary. Some of the Police Chief Matthew Hamner An interview homes were with Lucas’ not locked. girlfriend later In midMarch, Lucas is believed to revealed that he would occasionhave entered a Kono Road home ally borrow her Tahoe while she through an unlocked door and was at work. She also told police that he stole jewelry and other items. Police found latent prints that fled to Idaho where he has relamatched Lucas from a chair tives when he found out police inside the house that had been were looking for him. The jewelry turned up three moved. Just outside one of the lower windows of the guest- months later at a pawn shop in house, boot prints were found in Garden City, Idaho. Pawn shops a flower bed that matched work in Gig Harbor and Silverdale also reported Lucas had sold stolen boots often worn by Lucas. Lucas is a tree service work- jewelry from three April burglarer and in some of the cases is ies. Lucas was also seen while believed to have been working on or nearby the burglarized entering an unlocked home on properties before they were bur- April 16. A 22-year-old woman was in the house alone and heard glarized. Just a few days after the Kono someone enter. She grabbed a Road burglary, another home cell phone and locked herself in a bathroom to call 911. was broken into with a pry bar. In a photographic lineup, the homeowner identified Lucas as TURN TO BURGLAR | A46
Bainbridge Island Review
After a two-day tree sit, Seattle television coverage and more than a hundred Bainbridge citizens picketing did little to stop some 800 trees from being cut down at the site of an impending shopping center on High School Road, last week’s multi-day protest migrated to city hall Monday. This time, citizens were no longer asking to halt the clear cut across from Ace Hardware, but for fundamental change in the city’s planning process. “On this resource-limited island, responsible growth is the only option,” Chiara D’Angelo, the college student who led the tree protest, told the council. Residents filled the council chambers during this week’s meeting to ask city officials to make changes in the municipal code that can stop future developments by out-of-town companies like Visconsi from happening again on Bainbridge. Visconsi, an Ohio-based developer, first brought plans to build a 62,000-square-foot shopping center to the city in 2012. The development is planned to include a KeyBank branch, a drug store, pharmacy, restaurants, professional services and health care facilities. Though a Bartell Drugs was originally sought, people familiar with the project said that the Northwest-based chain is no longer in the running as a potential tenant. The proposal received mixed support from the beginning. Anger over the project came to a head, though, when Visconsi received approval to begin clear-cutting the land earlier this month. Two Mondays ago, D’Angelo sat 70 feet above ground on a wooden platform in the canopy of a Douglas fir tree on the Visconsi property to draw attention to the coming development and the loss of the forest along Highway 305 and High School Road. She stayed there until late Tuesday evening when police arrived to clear the premises of the crowd of protesters that had formed at the foot TURN TO OUTCRY | A41