The single-sponsor $20 million WCLA Credit Union in Olympia, Wash., was operating with boarded up windows Friday, the victim of vandals who spray painted graffiti on its building.

Brian Bahs, president/CEO the credit union housed in the offices of the Washington Contract Loggers Association, said his employees so far have managed to shrug off the spray-painting of the anarchist graffiti,” “You're Never Safe. Go Log in Hell” and the anarchists' logo on the leased building exterior.

The vandals, apparently linked by police to a group called the Puget Sound Anarchists, which bragged about the damage on its website, caused $30,000 in damage to credit union offices and that of the 1,200-member association.

Bahs said all but one of the 18 windows was shattered, discovered by employees when they came to work Tuesday.

“We hope to get the windows fixed next week but maybe half have plywood and there are some you can still see through,” said Bahs. “So we look a little like a half-abandoned building.”

Officials of the association whose members independently harvest trees for mills called the attack upsetting and said it has never happened before since the trade group opened in 1970.

Jerry Bonagofsky, CEO, told Olympia media he could not think of any particular issue that spurred the vandalism.

“The industry hasn't been involved in anything controversial for years,” he said. “It's a shock, an invasion of privacy.”

Bahs noted that on the same night of the attack, vandals in Seattle also etched graffiti and set fire to two homes at the Street of Dreams Corporate Office.

The graffiti referred to what it called anarchist prisoners and “the continual struggle against the destruction of the earth.”

Olympia police have said they have no direct clues as to the perpetrators of the WCLA spray painting and broken windows.

The vandals broke most of the windows in the building, including at the entrance.

Instant Insights /

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