The Chainsaw Bandit is still at large.
That was the word from Theron Perry, Rainier’s public works supervisor, during a recent city council meeting earlier this month.
So far, there are no leads — only cut-down trees.
“I have heard nothing,” Perry said during the April 8 meeting. “We came in last Friday morning and the apple trees down this end of the (Yelm-Tenino) trail were cut down, and all we noticed were that the branches were down … Somebody obviously took a chainsaw because they were nice, cleanly cut.”
Perry said that Clerk-Treasurer Tami Justice checked with Thurston County, but didn’t gain any further information.
“And nobody has fessed up, so we’re looking for the Chainsaw Bandit,” Perry said. “We have no clue.”
“That’s a shame,” Councilmember Dennis McVey said. “Those were two good trees.”
Perry agreed.
“What’s interesting is that there’s a lot of trees there,” Mayor Robert Shaw said. “How they picked those two and just moved on.”
“And nobody saw them,” Perry said.
According to Rainier’s deputy clerk, Shelley Roth, the trees in question are past Brogan Auto Repair, too far away for city cameras to pick up any chainsaw-wielding mischief.
The mystery continues.
In other news, Perry said that the fire flow testing for the city’s water system plan exposed some issues with the city’s backup fire pump.
“So, we’ve been systematically working through that,” Perry said. “We’ve installed a new battery. We’ve done fluid and filter changes on it. We’ve got the pump running. We do have a few intermittent problems that we’re working on, but we’re getting really, really close to be able to do a substantial test on it. And it was good because I like to expose a problem before it’s in an emergency situation, so that exposed our problems and we’re fixing that and working through that.”
Although the test revealed a potentially bad situation, the mayor echoed they are rapidly trying to get the issue fixed.
The next Rainier City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 13, at 5 p.m.
