Police seek drive-by flasher

Police are seeking an unidentified man who exposed himself to two teenage girls on Hidden Cove Road Tuesday evening.

The incident was reported east of the highway around dusk, Bainbridge Police Detective Scott Anderson said.

According to reports, two 14-year-old girls were walking a dog when a man pulled up next to them in a car. The driver showed the girls a picture of a dog and asked if they had seen it.

As they approached the car, they saw that the man was exposing himself to them. The girls walked away, but the driver turned the car around, opened the door and exposed himself again, this time making a lewd comment.

The girls fled to a nearby residence and called police. Officers were on the scene a few minutes later, but the suspect was gone.

The suspect was described as a male in his 30s, with red or blond hair, and a ponytail and goatee. The vehicle was said to be reddish-purple in color, looking similar to a Chevrolet Camaro.

Anderson noted that there have been several other cases of indecent exposure in the past year.

In one case, a woman jogging through the high school grounds noticed that a man sitting in a parked car was nude. Other incidents have been reported at local parks, but Anderson said the visual contact with victims in those cases may have been inadvertent – unlike the most recent incident.

“This guy definitely lured the girls over to the car,” Anderson said. “They had a dog, he had a picture of a dog.”

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 842-5211.

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Redistricting goes status quo

The Bainbridge Island City Council voted Wednesday to retain a three-ward system for election of council members.

Each ward will have two council members, with the seventh position to be elected at-large. The boundaries of the three wards also saw some tinkering, to reflect population shifts demonstrated by the 2000 census.

The changes were approved by a 6-0 vote, with Councilwoman Christine Nasser Rolfes absent.

The system replaces the current 2-2-3 council arrangement, although various proposals before the council had drawn virtually no public comment.

The council did take the opportunity to stagger terms, so voters will no longer elect both south ward seats and the two remaining central ward seats in the same year.

The south ward’s position 6 – currently occupied by Nasser Rolfes – will become a two-year position when it is up for re-election in 2003, then revert to a four-year term thereafter.

Likewise for position 4, a central ward seat currently held by Bill Knobloch. The position will be a two-year seat from 2005-07, then revert to a four-year seat with the next election.

The arrangement was agreed to in advance by the incumbents.

“It sounds as though we might have consensus to shorten all terms to two years,” Council chair Michael Pollock joked.

The seat now held by Pollock – central ward, position 1 – will become an at-large seat beginning with the 2003 election.

Told by someone in the gallery that he “got the short straw” for re-election – having to campaign island-wide in both the primary and general election – Pollock responded, “I’m not sure that I’m running.”

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Lynwood repairs OK’d

The council Wednesday approved a $137,000 construction contract for repairs to Lynwood Center Road.

The contract was awarded to Seattle-based Northern Con-Agg, whose bid came in significantly lower than those of two other firms.

The improvements will see construction of an 80-foot-long retaining wall, to shore up the roadway south of the Emerald Way intersection. The road has been restricted to one lane since January, when a slope failed and began to undermine the pavement.

Total cost of the project is $245,000, with much of that already spent on engineering. Work is expected to get under way this fall.

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Car wash and doughnuts

It won’t be holy water or manna from heaven, but it will be both cleansing and filling when members of the Unity Church of Bainbridge Island wash cars and sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Chevron on Hildebrand Lane.

Proceeds from the fund-raiser will to towards the church’s purchase of the building it is currently renting at 750 Ericksen Avenue.

Vehicle-cleaning costs will be $5 for cars, $7 for vans and $10 for trucks. The doughnuts – unavailable on this side of Puget Sound – will go for $7 per dozen.

“This will be a fun event that will give us a chance to go out into the community, wash a few cars and indulge people’s sweet tooth,” Unity minister Vici Derrick said.