CLALLAM BAY — The Northwest Coast is losing its only bank branch on Friday.
That’s the bleak reality residents and businesses face as Bank of America Corp. follows through on its decision made last fall to shutter its bank location, the only one on the northwestern tip of the North Olympic Peninsula.
“When you have a small community that has already suffered a lot of blows to its basic economic structure, it will be difficult to maintain without having basic services,” said Sande Balch, longtime Clallam Bay resident and past Clallam Bay-Sekiu Chamber of Commerce president.
“It’s going to be difficult for the community to maintain even the population it has now.”
Population: 1,200
Clallam Bay and Sekiu have an estimated combined population of 1,200 people.
“I probably won’t do business with Bank of America ever again,” said Balch, who is retiring with her husband and moving out of Clallam Bay in less than a month. The two of them used to own a motel in Sekiu.
“I don’t feel like they treated this community very well.”
LeAnn Fletcher, another Clallam Bay resident, echoed similar sentiments.
“I believe it was very unfair for them to leave our community,” said Fletcher.
“I will be pulling my accounts from Bank of America.”
Bank of America officials in San Francisco said the decision to close the Clallam Bay branch, near Clallam Bay Grocery at the corner of Fifth and Bogachiel streets, wasn’t taken lightly.
“These are hard decisions,” said Shirley Norton, a company spokeswoman.
“But the reality is the economics just weren’t there anymore.”
Norton said customers’ accounts are being consolidated into the Forks Bank of America branch, 30 miles away.