POULSBO, Wash. — The superintendent of the North Kitsap School District, Dr. Laurynn Evans, has been charged with a misdemeanor crime after she was allegedly witnessed and caught on video removing campaign signs urging people to vote no on a capital bond measure that would benefit the district.
On Jan. 26 at around 8 a.m., a 911 caller reported that he and his friend followed a driver they believed to have stolen their "VOTE NO ON NKSD BOND" signs, which they had purchased with their own money. The duo decided to stake out the location because their signs kept getting damaged or going missing.
Earlier that morning, one of the reporting party was hiding in the brush on the 34500 block of Little Boston Road when they saw a white woman with medium-length blond hair take two of the signs and place them in the back of a gray Ford Ranger. They began to follow the suspect and took down the license plate number. At one point the suspect vehicle turned onto Stottlemeyer Road between Rova Road and Bond Road. The reporting party drove past and waited for the vehicle to reappear. The driver of the Ford Ranger eventually parked at a Sons of Norway location in Poulsbo and went inside. The reporting party recognized the driver as Evans.
A deputy with the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office responded to the Sons of Norway location and waited for Evans to come out. Evans showed the officer the inside of her truck bed, which did not have any signs inside, but did have multiple smudges of green/blue grease that the reporting party had put on the signs to deter people from taking them. Evans said she did not know how the smudges got there.
Another deputy went to the location on Stottlemeyer Road where Evans was reported to have stopped her car. The deputy found two "VOTE NO ON NKSD BOND" signs down in a ditch in that area.
Based on eyewitness testimony, the location where the signs were found and the blue and green grease in the bed of Evans' truck, she was arrested for intentionally removing lawfully placed political advertising signs without authorization.
She faces one misdemeanor charge of voting-defacing/removing political signs in Kitsap County District Court.
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