Bye-bye Bank of the West

Sweetwater County will no longer send depositories to Bank of the West starting Oct. 1.

During the Sweetwater County Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning, the commissioners voted unanimously to remove Bank of the West from its list of depositories starting Oct. 1. The commissioners stated they needed to make a statement against Bank of the West’s views.

About two weeks ago, Bank of the West stated on its website blog.bankofthewest.com/change, “We will no longer do business with companies whose main activity is exploring, producing, distributing, marketing or trading oil and gas from shale and/or tar sands. We will no longer finance coal mines or coal-fired power plants that are not actively involved in the energy transition.”

The Bank of the West also stated on the website, it’s “withdrawing support from companies and business activities that are detrimental to our environment and our health.”

In response, the commissioners directed Sweetwater County Treasurer Robb Slaughter to look into moving funds into other local banks. The county had $15.8 million of the general fund is with Bank of the West, while $1.4 million is in insurance with them and about $14 million is invested with the bank.

“I’ve started moving some of the accounts to other banks,” Slaughter said.

 Slaughter has talked with local bank representatives about collateralizing everything the county will need and agreed with the commissioners that the county must severe its ties with the bank. Slaughter set a goal to accomplish moving all of the funds out of the bank and into other local banks by Oct. 1. 

Slaughter said they will need to address more concerns, but the two biggest are payroll and warrants.

Despite county deputy attorney James Schermetzler’s recommendation to wait until October to make the motion removing Bank of the West from the depository list and adding the new banks to the list, the Commission felt it needed to make a stand.

“I think we need to make a statement,” Commissioner Wally Johnson said.

Johnson said most of Sweetwater County was built on coal mining and oil and gas.

“This is our county,” Commissioner John Kolb said.

He said the bank isn’t going to tell this county how to live. All the commissioners agreed this has nothing to do with the local branch, but corporate’s stance.