Alameda County DAis coddling criminals

It should not surprise anyone that Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price dropped special circumstances against David Misch, one involving his alleged kidnapping and murder of Michaela Garecht in 1988, giving him the possibility of being paroled, instead of serving life in prison.

Soon after Ms. Price was elected, she said she would “seek to remove all 41 local cases from Death Row and to resentence people who were sentenced to life without parole.” She also said her “administration will begin an era of change that ultimately will make us (Alameda County residents) stronger and safer.” I beg to differ, not with the likes of Misch running around.

The voters and residents of Alameda County are being introduced to a new form of criminal justice — one that, in my view, is not going to keep them safe and favors the perpetrator.

Ninfa WoodWalnut Creek

Quarry plan willundermine rural road

The EBMUD plan to fill in the old quarry on Lake Chabot Road, located on county land between San Leandro and Castro Valley, with soil excavated during pipeline maintenance proposes to run 60 to 100 dump trucks a day along Lake Chabot Road for 40 to 80 years.

That’s right. If anybody now alive is here to see it, the site and adjacent hillside will eventually be seeded and planted with native plants.

Lake Chabot Road is currently closed because of landslides and erosion that have undermined the roadbed. It’s doubtful that it will ever be able to support the constant dump truck traffic.

Gary SloaneSan Leandro

Agencies must makebetter use of tax dollars

Re. “Prop. 13 proves costly to government programs,” Page A8, Jan. 13:

I disagree with the notion that local and state governments don’t have enough money already from other taxes and bonds for impoverished schools, understaffed government offices and infrastructure.

Our property taxes are plenty high in California and enough businesses have been run out of the state. We don’t need any more lost jobs and tax base.

The real problem is not a lack of funding but how all of these agencies use the money they have.

Herman BetchartFremont

Recount cost is worthelection integrity

The article “Are Alameda County elections actually headed to a recount?” (Page B1, Jan. 15) regarding “voters confusion about everything from the results of certain races to the future of ranked choice voting” helps me understand why people might question election results.

The District 4 Oakland Unified school board “snafu” demonstrates that our election systems are not infallible. That said, I believe that the seeds of doubt this might have cast is very troubling. The cost of letting any doubts remain will be much more costly to our society in the long run than any monetary cost of a recount now. We should not put a price on maintaining faith in election integrity.

Dennis CarlisleNewark

Predicting climate changeisn’t settled science

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently stated to “Expect record-shattering hot years soon, likely in the next couple years because of ‘relentless’ climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.”

Last October, this same NOAA released its U.S. Winter Outlook. Researchers predicted that through February 2023, “California will still have to contend with the ongoing drought and won’t see much precipitation.” Wrong.

Scientists admittedly can’t predict hurricanes a year out with any accuracy, but they want us to believe they can predict global temperatures and sea levels years out. Real science is never “settled.”

Jon RegoClayton

]]> https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/16/letters-1119/feed/ 0 8717708 2023-01-16T16:30:41+00:00 2023-01-17T03:58:22+00:00 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/13/shakeup-at-alameda-das-office-prosecutors-placed-on-leave-inspectors-fired-as-new-district-attorney-takes-the-job/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/13/shakeup-at-alameda-das-office-prosecutors-placed-on-leave-inspectors-fired-as-new-district-attorney-takes-the-job/#respond Sat, 14 Jan 2023 05:21:53 +0000 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/?p=8716329&preview=true&preview_id=8716329 OAKLAND –  Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price has placed several seasoned prosecutors on administrative leave this week and fired two top inspectors, in what appears to be the start of an office shakeup by the newly-elected outsider.

Multiple sources told the Bay Area News Group that Price and her new leadership team in their first full week in office moved to place at least three deputy district attorneys, including senior prosecutors, on leave.

Deputy District Attorneys John Brouhard, Butch Ford and Colleen McMahon are among the attorneys Price placed on paid administrative leave — a status that opens the door for their termination.

Additionally, Chief of Inspectors Craig Chew and Assistant Chief of Inspectors Andrea Moreland were fired, according to multiple sources. Unlike prosecutors, inspectors are considered at-will employees and can be terminated without arbitration. The attorneys placed on leave could not be fired until after a two-pronged process, which ends with a ruling by either an administrative law judge or an arbitrator.

On Friday, the mood inside the DA’s office ranged from demoralization to panic. Multiple employees were asked to inform their colleagues, and in some cases their friends, that they were to be placed on administrative leave and other attorneys sat in their offices wondering if they would be next, according to the sources.

Matt Finnegan, an attorney with the local union representing Alameda County prosecutors, said his office is representing the attorneys and will continue to do so “as more slips come in.”

“The biggest downside is that they aren’t going to be able to handle any cases while they’re on administrative leave,” Finnegan said.

It is unclear exactly why the prosecutors were shown the door. A spokeswoman for the DA’s office declined to comment.

However, Price had criticized some of the prosecutors, including Ford, during her 2022 campaign.

Ford, a longtime prosecutor with more than 30 murder trials under his belt, prosecuted an Oakland man, Shawn Martin, who won an appeal of his murder conviction over Ford giving jurors a misleading instruction. Martin was found not guilty on retrial, and later became a volunteer for Price’s campaign.

Martin’s case became a sticking point because just before his second trial, his attorney filed a failed motion to recuse the entire Alameda County DA’s office for alleged rampant misconduct. Just days before Price’s victory in the Nov. 8 election, Martin was identified as a suspect in a nonfatal shooting outside an Oakland bar and remains at large.

The shakeup also comes just days after Price reduced charges against suspected serial killer David Misch, who was being prosecuted by McMahon. Already incarcerated at a state prison hospital for stabbing a woman to death, Misch is facing a new trial in the slayings of two Fremont women and the abduction and killing of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht in Hayward, all cold cases from the 1980s.

Price dropped special circumstances charges against Misch, stirring controversy while making good on a campaign promise to review cases where individuals face life without the possibility of parole. It is the first of many such cases Price is expected to evaluate.

The official reason for sidelining Brouhard along with McMahon would be more of a mystery, if not for a common denominator among the two veteran prosecutors. While running for DA, Price held a press conference calling out McMahon, Brouhard and other prosecutors for using their government email accounts to campaign for Nancy O’Malley in 2018. O’Malley — who defeated Price and won re-election that year — announced her retirement in May 2021, opening up the seat for the first time in decades.

Price at the time said the prosecutors used county resources “to gain an unfair advantage” against her. Price and an attorney representing her campaign filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging attorneys violated a state government code prohibiting an independent expenditure committee from coordinating with a candidate — in this case O’Malley.

The Fair Political Practices Commission investigation of the complaint filed by Price remains open, according to the FPPC. Like Ford, McMahon and Brouhard have handled numerous felony trials and are among the office’s most seasoned prosecutors.

Other high-ranking prosecutors who worked under O’Malley have left or are rumored to be eyeing the exit.

Veteran prosecutor Terry Wiley, the O’Malley-backed candidate who ran against Price in the November 2022 election, retired from the office after the election.

One early departure, according to sources, is Assistant District Attorney L.D. Louis, a 20-plus-year prosecutor. Louis is said to have joined the County Counsel’s Office, which oversees legal matters for the civilian side of the county. Louis was most recently the head of the DA’s mental health unit, specializing in policy as well as collaborative courts and alternatives to incarceration.

Top-floor prosecutors and inspectors, like Wiley and Chew, are at-will employees, meaning they could be dismissed without a reason. Virtually all prosecutors, except for assistant district attorneys, are represented by the Alameda County Prosecutors Association and cannot be terminated without cause. Prosecutors began organizing in 2018 and were formalized as a union two years later.

Any prosecutor placed on leave is entitled to a so-called Skelly hearing, which provides employees an opportunity to hear and defend themselves against the employer’s allegations.

In announcing her new leadership team last Friday, Price appointed retired Oakland police Capt. Eric Lewis as chief of inspectors and former Marin County Assistant District Attorney Otis Bruce Jr. and Royl L. Roberts, a Peralta Community College administrator who recently became the district’s general counsel after passing the state bar in July, as her two chief assistant district attorneys.

Kevin Jose Valasco pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Adriana “Drina” Roybal, his girlfriend. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 31, where Judge Thomas Nixon will decide what sentence to impose. Valasco faces up to three years in state prison, but could be sentenced to no additional jail time.

Valasco, who is from Antioch, ran Roybal over at around 11:50 p.m. Feb. 1, 2017, outside a home on the 400 block of Ruth Court in San Leandro, according to police. He was arrested and spent several days in jail, but then posted $70,000 bail. The terms of the plea deal allow him to remain free until he is sentenced.

After the crash, Valasco — whose name is also spelled “Velasco” in court records — told police that he and Roybal had been in the middle of a lengthy argument and that he’d trashed their apartment after she broke his glasses, according to court records. He claimed she lay in the middle of the road to block his exit, according to the testimony of San Leandro police Detective Tom Rogers.

“What (Valasco) said was that he wanted to push the car forward so that she would move out of the way, because he felt that once she saw the car moving she would get out of the way of a moving car,” Rogers testified, adding that Valasco said she jumped on the hood of his red BMW as it moved forward, and he ended up pinning her underneath the car.

In the aftermath of the incident, a family member of Roybal started an online petition to “Demand Justice for Drina” and revoke Valasco’s bail.

“It’s not fair he gets to enjoy FREEDOM and return to his family, while he ended Drina’s and we get to live without her,” the petition says. “Just because she’s not famous or rich she gets treated like no one?”

Quarry project woulddestroy scenic road

EBMUD has applied for a conditional use permit from Alameda County to allow the deposit of trench soil extracted from pipeline replacement into the quarry site located at 13575 Lake Chabot Road.

EBMUD estimates that there will be 60–100 dump trucks five days a week on Lake Chabot Road for the next 40–80 years (this is not a typo), with trucks entering Lake Chabot Road in San Leandro and exiting on Foothill in Castro Valley every four or five minutes.

Lake Chabot Road, is very narrow with no shoulders, already heavy with 3,500 cars a day, bicycle traffic, wildlife and hikers. It is currently closed due to storm damage. This fragile but needed scenic road can’t support dump trucks which will make it unsafe for those of us who use it now.

Teri SchlesingerSan Leandro

Prop. 13 proves costlyto government programs

“Prop. 13 is vital to senior community” in the Jan. 10 East Bay Times (Page A6) misleads readers.

Yes, Proposition 13 is vital to the senior community of homeowners, but Proposition 13 is also unfair to them and others, as well. In fact, Proposition 13 has been exploited by the community of big businesses while also harming the senior community and others.

Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 — thanks to the deceptive slogans of Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann — as “a way to keep Grandma in her home.” But it was also a way to keep the property taxes of businesses low — especially big businesses like Chevron and Disneyland.

Because the low property taxes of Proposition 13 drastically reduced funding of local and state governments, seniors and others have suffered — impoverished schools, government offices understaffed with shorter hours, streets and other infrastructure in poor repair.

Prop. 13 needs fixing to fairly serve all.

Ruby MacDonaldEl Cerrito

Feds overreach withtalk of gas stove ban

The federal government wants to ban gas stoves. I have a stove with an electric oven and gas burners.

I don’t like cooking with electric burners. It’s difficult to regulate the heat; with gas burners it’s so much easier. Gov. Gavin Newsom also wanted to do that but not for restaurants. The government always wants to come after the little guy and make our lives more difficult.

It’s bad enough already with inflation and high gas, food and energy prices. They blame everything on climate change. Enough is enough.

Cathy LedbetterNewark

The U.S. should joinnuclear weapons treaty

Jan. 22 is a historic day. It’s the day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force in 2021, aka the “Ban-aversary.”

This year, over 100 events across the country (including in Livermore) will celebrate the treaty with banner hangings, bell-ringings, visits and letters to elected officials, public readings of the treaty, and more.

U.S. leaders have long said we will lead the way to nuclear abolition. It’s time to make that promise real — join the treaty and lift the nuclear shadow that looms over the world.

Scott YundtLivermore

Letter is wrong to paintthe GOP as a monolith

Re. “Let’s celebrate heroes of the Jan. 6 breach,” Page A6, Jan. 11:

Thanks to Sandy White, I know who I am.

I bicycle everywhere (to save lives and the planet) and maxed out my solar. I’m not “rich” but donate 15% of my gross income to charities, regardless of whether they lean “left” or “right.” They all help people.

She proclaims “Let’s remind everyone which party (Republicans) tried to destroy our democracy and which party (Democrats) saved it.” She implies the five deaths of Jan. 6 (three by natural causes) are comparable to the 2,403 who died at Pearl Harbor — a true “day of infamy.” This veteran disagrees.

Who am I? A Republican. Therefore I am also a “Destroyer of Democracy.” She mentions no exceptions.

We are individuals, not a mindless collective. I consider ridiculous generalizations and uncompromising narratives (like hers) to be the true “Destroyers.” Obi-Wan Kenobi observed, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Sandy, welcome to the Dark Side.

Stacy SpinkCastro Valley

]]> https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/12/letters-1115/feed/ 0 8715206 2023-01-12T16:30:54+00:00 2023-01-13T03:56:52+00:00 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/11/bed-bath-beyond-store-closures-include-6-in-southern-california/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/11/bed-bath-beyond-store-closures-include-6-in-southern-california/#respond Wed, 11 Jan 2023 19:29:59 +0000 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/?p=8712556&preview=true&preview_id=8712556 Bed Bath & Beyond‘s downward slide continued Tuesday as the company announced 126 of its 150 planned store closures, including Bay Area locations in San Jose, Antioch, San Leandro, Vallejo and Larkspur.

A timeline has not been given for when the stores will close.

The closures are part of a plan to try to stabilize the company’s finances and turn around its declining sales.

In August, the home goods retailer secured more than $500 million in new financing and announced it would close 150 of its stores and slash its workforce by 20%. The company said Tuesday it was on track to meet that goal and hinted the strategy likely will involve bankruptcy.

As of Feb. 26, 2022, the company had about 32,000 employees.

Bed & Bath’s options in Chapter 11 include pursuing a sale of either its baby clothing, accessories and furniture brand, or the whole company, as well as seeking additional financing from new or existing investors to help it turn the business around.

Aside from its namesake brand, the retailer had 135 Buybuy Baby stores and 51 locations under the Harmon, Harmon Face Values or Face Values banners at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2022.

It also opened five Buybuy Baby stores in that three-month period ending May 28 last year.

Any path the company chooses will likely include more store liquidations and layoffs, according to Bob Phibbs, CEO of The Retail Doctor, a New York-based retail consulting firm.

“If they file for bankruptcy, they’ll come out of it, even if they have to cut their store fleet in half to succeed,” he said. “I don’t see anyone else coming in to take it over. They’ll look to where most of their online sales and store volumes are coming from and they’ll keep those.”

The company operates 708 Bed Bath & Beyond locations in the U.S., including 69 in California, according to ScrapeHero, a data-gathering firm.

Bed Bath & Beyond initiated a turnaround plan in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, but it failed to gain enough traction, according to President and CEO Sue Gove.

“Although we moved quickly and effectively to change the assortment and other merchandising and marketing strategies, inventory was constrained and we did not achieve our goals,” Gove said in a statement.

The retailer posted a net loss of nearly $393 million in its fiscal third quarter, deeper than the $276.4 million loss posted a year earlier.

“Multiple paths are being explored and we are determining our next steps thoroughly, and in a timely manner,” Gove said.

Sales slid 33% to $1.26 billion for the three months ending Nov. 26, compared with $1.88 billion a year earlier. And sales at stores open at least a year — a key gauge of a retailer’s health — dropped 32%.

Phibbs said the company’s momentum began to wane when Mark Tritton, the former chief merchandising officer at Target, took over as CEO in 2019.

“He stopped their coupons and they lost of a lot of business,” Phibbs said. “Customers voted with their feet.”

In June 2022, the company announced Tritton was out and Gove subsequently took the helm.

While the company’s recent quarterly performance was not a surprise given Bed Bath & Beyond’s update on its results last week, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in a statement that it’s still a bit of a shock and only adds to concerns about the company’s survival.

“A third of revenue has vanished, plunging an already beleaguered company into the depths of chaos,” he said.

5 BAY AREA STORES CLOSING

• San Jose: 5353 Almaden Expressway, Suite A-200
• Larkspur: 2601 Larkspur Landing Circle
• Antioch: 5719 Lone Tree Way
• San Leandro: 15555 East 14th Street, Suite 240
• Vallejo: 105 Plaza Drive, Suite 107Bloomberg contributed to this report.

The eighth and ninth storms to target California since Christmas are on the way this holiday weekend, making for volatile and treacherous conditions from the Bay Area to the Sierra.

The storms themselves won’t be as intense as those that devastated communities in the Santa Cruz mountains and along the beaches over the past week, but with rivers running high and soils already saturated, more flooding and mudslides are predicted across California. The Salinas River in southern Monterey County in particular is expected to flood Friday.

“We definitely appreciate the bounty, but we wish it was spread out over a longer period,” Jeff Lorber, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Wednesday.

So much snow has fallen already this season that sensors are registering what is considered the “full seasonal snowpack” normally expected by April 1, state climatologist Michael Anderson told reporters during a news briefing Wednesday. It’s still too soon to say whether the snowpack levels will hold until then, but if they do, they could provide ample snowmelt to continue to fill the reservoirs this spring and summer.

Kevin “Coop” Cooper, a longtime Tahoe area ski condition reporter and resort marketing consultant, said the abundant snow is a welcome change after several lean snow years during the state’s drought.

“Right now, I’m looking out of my house and it’s snowing lightly. We’re seeing a nice new amount of snow, temperatures are dropping,” he said Wednesday. “After my 30 years up here, this is one of the best MLK weekends we’ve seen in a long time.”

But that comes with a catch.

Video: California storms drop hail in the Bay Area, cause rockslides, sinkholes and more

With heavy snow and high winds predicted in the Sierra through the weekend, getting to the mountains could be dangerous. Travel in vulnerable areas, especially the Sierra, is not advised from Friday afternoon through Saturday, Lorber said, “when the winds and the rainfall will be at their peak.” The ninth storm is expected to roar in late Sunday through Tuesday.

It’s the kind of warning that weekend warriors amped to hit the Sierra slopes don’t like to heed.

“Fresh snow is like going through butter,” said Andrew Pham, 22, who stopped at Helm of Sun Valley ski shop in San Jose to attach bindings to his new snowboard and is planning to drive up Friday. “When you’re the first one on it, ooh.”

By Wednesday, snowpack levels reached 226% of average for this time of year, beating out 2005 which was 206% of average. All that fresh snow is giving experts reason to feel optimistic that drought conditions that have gripped the Golden State for three years could meaningfully ease by the end of the snowy season.

“The fact that we’re continuing to get this precipitation is just absolutely fantastic,” said Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory near Donner Summit. “It’s still unlikely that we’re going to get completely out of this drought in a single year. But if the storm door stays open… we can put a serious dent in it.”

As of Wednesday, major Northern California reservoirs have registered “impressive gains,” Anderson, the state climatologist, said. But there’s still plenty of catching up to do. Lake Don Pedro east of Modesto is at 69% capacity, for instance, and San Luis Reservoir southeast of the Bay Area, which has risen 35 feet since Dec. 1, is 40% full. The Shasta and Oroville reservoirs, the behemoths of California’s water system, are at 42% and 47% respectively. Lake Oroville has risen more than 90 feet since Dec. 1, surpassing its 2021 and 2022 levels.

“We’ve had quite a deficit because of the drought,” said Molly White, principal engineer with the state water board. “So we’re seeing steep inclines right now in storage, and hope that continues.”

In the Bay Area, Mount Umunhum in Santa Cruz County registered the highest rainfall total in the 24 hours leading to 10 a.m. Wednesday — 1.03 inches. Concord recorded 0.97 inches of rain. About six-tenths of an inch fell in Los Gatos; a quarter-inch fell at Ben Lomond, and two-tenths of an inch fell in San Jose and at the San Francisco International Airport.

In Tahoe, business is booming at ski resorts, despite struggles to keep lifts operational as a series of snow storms continues to plow through the Sierras. So much snow has accumulated in the Sierras already that ski resorts are having to keep track of avalanche risk hour-by-hour.

Mark McLaughlin, the so-called “storm king” who keeps track of Sierra conditions, said he listened to the concussive pounding Wednesday morning of cannons pelting the mountain sides of the Palisades Tahoe resort to trigger avalanches to improve safety before skiers arrive.

“I bet you I heard 20 of them this morning, 20 blasts,” McLaughlin said Wednesday.

John O’Connell, spokesman for Caltrans in the Lake Tahoe area, recommended that skiers from the Bay Area hit the road Thursday if they can, as the storm may arrive earlier Friday than initially expected. They should be prepared to put chains on their car tires unless they have four-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicles with tires designed for rain and snow. Either way, if there are chain controls due to ice and snow, vehicles should drive no faster than 30 mph, he said. And temporary road closures are possible during the snowstorms.

“We recommend people bring blankets, bottled water and snacks, have their phone charged up and a full tank of gas,” O’Connell said. “If we do have to hold traffic, you might be stuck up there in traffic that’s not moving for a little bit. We just want people to be prepared.”

Pham, who was tuning up his snowboard in San Jose on Wednesday, is still hoping to hit that fresh snow.

“But Dad called and said the storm is coming and I shouldn’t go,” he said. “So I guess I’m 50/50. But it would probably be worth it.”

Staff writer Scooty Nickerson contributed to this story.

Seventeen people are dead of causes related to the series of California storms that started Dec. 31, the state’s emergency agency says.

The map above gives the approximate locations of those for which details are known.

The total does not include 5-year-old Kyle Doan, the subject of a search after he was swept away Jan. 9 in a creek near Paso Robles.

1. Dec. 31, falling tree. Gary Yules, 72, Lighthouse Field State Beach, Santa Cruz.

2. Jan. 1, drowning. Steven Sampson, 45, found dead in his car near Highway 99 and Dillard Road, Wilton. Dillard runs parallel to the Cosumnes River, which was flooding and had caused a levee failure.

3. Jan. 1, drowning. Mei Keng Lam, 57, found dead in her car near Highway 99 and Dillard Road, Wilton. Her family said she had gone missing on New Year’s Eve.

4. Jan. 1, drowning. Katherine Martinez, 61, found dead in her submerged car in a ditch near New Hope Road, west of Galt. Her family said she had gone out to help her son, whose motorcycle was stuck in the mud.

5. Jan. 1, vehicle crash. Christine Flores, 65, killed when her car went off the road and landed in a creek in the mountain community of Arrowbear.

6. Jan. 4, falling tree. Aeon Tocchini, 2, killed when a redwood tree fell on his family’s mobile home near Occidental.

7. Jan. 4, vehicle crash. Marmsha Nash, 19, killed when she apparently lost control of her car while driving through standing water near Fairfield.

8. Jan. 6, drowning. Rodrigo Lucero Bonola, 41, found dead in a drainage channel in San Bernardino.

9. Jan. 7, vehicle crash. Edgar Castillo, 37, killed when his truck overturned and went down an embankment near Manchester, in Mendocino County. A former San Jose resident, he was doing tree-clearing work for Pacific Gas & Electric when he died. His passenger, a 24-year-old man, suffered major injuries.

10. Jan. 7, falling tree. Rebekah Rohde, 40, killed in a tent in Sacramento.

11. Jan. 8, falling tree. Steven Sorensen, 61, killed in a tent in Sacramento.

12. Jan. 9, falling tree. Susan Stever, 68, crushed by a tree that fell on her home north of Fort Bragg around 1:30 a.m.

13. Jan. 9, drowning. Unidentified driver drowned in her car on flooded Avila Beach Drive.

14-15. Jan. 10, falling tree and vehicle crash. A driver was killed when a tree fell on his pickup truck around 5:30 a.m. on Highway 99 near Visalia. A motorcyclist, a 58-year-old man from Cutler, was killed in the ensuing pileup.

Bed Bath & Beyond coupon shoppers take note: If you have a stash of its big blue 20% off coupons in your drawer or in your inbox, better use them soon.

The struggling home goods retailer issued a dire prediction on Thursday, calling into doubt its ability to stay in business much longer and said it was exploring a path forward that includes filing for bankruptcy.

A bankruptcy filing, which reportedly could come in a matter of weeks, might spell the end of its iconic coupon programs, especially if the company pursues a bankruptcy process that involves liquidation rather than just restructuring.

“If Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy, the retailer might honor the 20% coupons for a 30-day period. After that, and especially if it starts closing stores and sets liquidation sales, creditors wouldn’t want to allow shoppers to tack on those 20% off coupons on top of 70% off liquidation prices,” said Burt Flickinger, retail expert and managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group.

Other retailers have followed a similar game plan after bankruptcy and store closings.

5 BAY AREA STORES CLOSING

• San Jose: 5353 Almaden Expressway, Suite A-200

• Larkspur: 2601 Larkspur Landing Circle

• Antioch: 5719 Lone Tree Way

• San Leandro: 15555 East 14th Street, Suite 240

• Vallejo: 105 Plaza Drive, Suite 107

Toys ‘R’ Us honored its gift cards, store credit and coupons for a 30-day period after it filed for bankruptcy in 2017, and subsequently liquidated its US business. The toy seller has since begun to attempt a comeback through a partnership with Macy’s, and opened its first post-bankruptcy store in 2019 under new ownership.

It’s not just creditors who might take issue with the store honoring the coupons on top of liquidation discounts. “For suppliers of name brands in particular, they wouldn’t want the deep discounting to negatively impact their brand image,” said Ali Besharat, associate professor of marketing and co-director of the Consumer Insights and Business Innovation Center at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.

Big Blue became a company icon

Bed Bath & Beyond introduced its oversized coupon for 20% off a single item three decades ago.

Over time, the oversized postcard-like mailer and digital coupon with an eye-popping purple-blue border and font blaring “20% off in-store or online” developed a cult following and became a successful marketing strategy to lure in repeat shoppers, said Flickinger.

The coupon became so synonymous with the home goods chain that it gained a nickname — “Big Blue,” according to a New York Times report. And then it grew into a pop culture reference as celebrities and late-night talk show hosts popped it into their on-air conversations, the report said.

Rumors swirled on various social platforms that Big Blue coupons never expire, even though the weekly coupon does feature an expiration date.

Then the pandemic hit and walloped the retail industry. With stores closed for months, and consumers rethinking their non-essential purchases, Bed Bath & Beyond sales and profit took a hit. In late 2020, the retailer said it was scaling back on its popular coupon program to boost its business.

Two years later, company executives called the move a ‘big mistake,” admitting they had misjudged how much shoppers had come to embrace the regular cadence of the Big Blue coupons.

And now, Big Blue’s future could truly be in jeopardy. It depends on what comes next.

“If it is the former, then there’s a very, very high chance that the reward programs will survive and the company will honor any existing rewards and coupons. After all, the company would not want to lose their customers and these loyalty programs or loyalty rewards are made to retain customers,” said Jha.

But if the company goes through a liquidation process, then whether or not these reward points and coupons would be honored is uncertain, he said.

“Since the company no longer exists, it is quite possible that the points would simply be useless. However, sometimes the reward points work differently and might survive even after the parent company dies,” he said. “In any case, if I was a customer holding reward points and coupons, and if the company would be going through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, then I would use it before they lose value.”

The-CNN-Wire & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

State and local officials on Tuesday began cleaning up from the half-dozen atmospheric rivers that have pummeled California since late December, killing at least 17 people and leaving 96,000 people under evacuation warnings or orders amid the risk of flooding and mudslides. Their work came amid a brief respite from the rain and the wind but with more strong storms expected to arrive later in the week.

Although none of the coming storms are forecast to be as big as the “bomb cyclone” that hit last week, residents have been warned to stay vigilant. While touring the storm and tide-ravaged community of Capitola on Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom cautioned that even a little rain could cause outsized effects due to heavily-saturated soils.

“The magnitude of this is not isolated to smaller communities, it is scaled across the largest state in our union,” Newsom said. “We’re soaked. This place is soaked. And now just more modest amount of precipitation could have as equal or greater impact in terms of the conditions on the ground.”

On Tuesday, nearly every corner of the state had felt the impacts of the recent atmospheric onslaught that caused flooding and myriad downed trees in Northern California, mudslides and a major evacuation in the Southern California community of Montecito and heavy snow across the length of the Sierra Nevada.

California Storms video: Hail in the Bay Area, rockslides, sinkholes and more

On the Central Coast, where some of the storm’s worst effects were felt, a 5-year-old boy died Monday after being swept away in a San Luis Obispo County creek, authorities said. A woman also drowned the same day after driving onto a mile-long section of Central Coast roadway that had been closed due to flooding, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Visiting the Santa Cruz coast, Newsom vowed to provide assistance to Capitola, where huge waves stoked from a “bomb cyclone” last week tore out a section of the historic Capitola Wharf and smashed and flooded a half-dozen beachfront Capitola Village restaurants.

“We’re not walking away,” Newsom said, standing on the town’s waterfront where generations of Bay Area residents have gone to frolic on the sand, dine and drink on seaside patios. From Dec. 31 through Sunday, heavy rains and a devastating tidal event caused at least $28 million in damages to public property across unincorporated Santa Cruz County, said Jason Hoppin, spokesman for Santa Cruz County. In addition, five buildings were red-tagged, and another 131 were deemed significantly damaged but repairable.

That doesn’t include any damage sustained Monday when the San Lorenzo River flooded its banks and sent water rushing into numerous buildings. Nor does it include a line of gusty storms to tear through the county early Tuesday morning, which prompted dozens of 911 calls from people reporting trees falling onto their houses..

Newsom gave no specifics regarding state aid to businesses Wednesday, nor details about funding for rebuilding the wharf. He also did not reveal whether the Seacliff Wharf — a state facility just down the coast that once led to a now-damaged cement-filled ship — would be repaired after damage from the storm. “All that will be determined,” Newsom said.

Around the Bay Area, the true extent of the recent storms began coming into focus Tuesday, even as thunderstorms dropped pea-sized hail and yet more rain.

In Santa Clara County, at least $24 million in damages to public property had been tallied by city and county officials through midday Tuesday — a figure that was expected to evolve as more assessments were completed, a county official said. Much of that tally included damage to roadways — more than a dozen of which remained closed midday Tuesday.

The heavy rains also caused dozens of sewage spills around the Bay Area and other parts of the state as sewage systems became overwhelmed by huge amounts of water pouring into the ground and seeping into pipes. Since New Year’s Eve, for example, at least 22 million gallons of “unauthorized discharges” occurred in the Bay Area, said Eileen White, executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Control Board.

About 150 calls a day have streamed into the dispatch center for Bay Area Tree Specialists of late, said Michelle Reulman, the business’ office manager.

“This is a state of emergency,” said John Gill, owner of Majestic Tree Service, just moments after helping to clear a tree that fell on three vehicles and a house Wednesday off Bascom Avenue in San Jose. “You drive every five minutes, and there’s a tree down on a house or the street or the road or it’s flooded.”

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a falling eucalyptus tree topped a 137-foot tall transmission tower in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood. The weight of the tower brought down three distribution poles as well as power lines and some transformers, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesperson Mayra Tostado said in an update posted to Twitter. As a result, about 2,100 customers lost power.

“We’ve brought in additional resources to be able to restore power as quickly as possible to our customers,” Tostado said. “We understand how disruptive it has been to be without power and we’re doing everything we can to turn the lights back on as quickly as possible.”

Tostado said the region saw winds up to 70 mph and 100 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.

The South Bay took a big punch from Mother Nature today. @PGE4Me responded to an outage in San Jose’s Willow Glen due to a eucalyptus tree knocking down a 137-ft. tall transmission tower. With its weight, it pulled down power lines and poles connected to it. Here’s my report. pic.twitter.com/HJUJm9tqDA

— Mayra Tostado (@PGE_Mayra) January 11, 2023

Many of the trees were felled during an onslaught of thunderstorms Tuesday that knocked out power to tens of thousands of people across the Bay Area, while dropping between .25 and 1.25 inches of rain across most of the South Bay, the East Bay and the Peninsula. Much of the Santa Cruz mountains received between .66 and 1.4 inches of rain overnight, pushing three-day storm totals to between 6 and 8 inches of rain across much of the area.

As of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, 24-hour precipitation totals around the Bay Area included 1.21 inches in San Francisco, 1.18 inches in Oakland, 1.11 inches in Concord,.41 inches in San Jose and .40 inches in Livermore, according to the weather service.

More than 40,000 PG&E customers were without power as of 5 p.m. Tuesday — the majority of them in the South Bay where more than 27,000 customers remained without electricity, according to the utility provider.

To the east across the Sierra Nevada, a remarkable run of snowfall continued to push the state’s snowpack higher — reaching 215% of its average for this date across the state, according to the California Department of Water Resources. The southern Sierra already has received more than it normally gets by April 1, while the northern Sierra is about 75% of the way to that mark.

Another .1 to .25 inches of rain is expected to fall over much of the Bay Area on Wednesday, with higher amounts forecasted to hit the North Bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains, according to the National Weather Service. Some brief showers may hit the region on Thursday or Friday, but the area should remain mostly dry under cloudy skies those days.

Many residents found themselves whiplashed from the see-sawing weather. In Soquel, near Santa Cruz, Roman Bodnarchuk wondered aloud at the next curveball from Mother Nature after a dramatic two weeks of joy and catastrophe.

Just after Christmas, he had finally succeeded in getting his war-refugee parents out of Ukraine — where they lived near a power station under frequent Russian bombardment — and to his rented house by Soquel Creek.

“It’s very stressful,” said Bodnarchuk, 30. “You can imagine how frustrating it was to leave the house when my mom is sick and having to deal with all these situations. Hopefully the house withstands all this damage.”

He couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread at viewing forecasts for additional rain in the coming week

“We’re very worried,” Bodnarchuk said. “It’s been difficult enough already.”

Rick Hurd, Julia Prodis Sulek, Jason Green and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

According to statements by San Leandro city staff and the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, Charles “Chuck” Harris, 42, of Greeley Hill, was taken into custody Sunday morning in the 1000 block of 143rd Avenue in San Leandro after his arrest under a Ramey warrant on suspicion of possession and distribution of multiple child-pornography files. Harris was later booked into Mariposa County’s adult detention facility and held on $50,000 bail.

Officials shared limited details Monday due to what they described as ongoing investigations’ sensitive nature, but did say tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children prompted three initial investigations that led to Harris’ arrest by Mariposa County sheriff’s deputies, members of the Central California and Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“The safety and protection of children is one of the most important jobs we have. Children need to know they are safe,” Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese said. “I am extremely proud of the swift and professional job our Detectives and partner agencies did, always working together so our communities are safer.”

“We will work closely with our partner agencies to ensure that justice is served. Each day, our community places its trust in our public safety staff, and we absolutely understand the anger and disappointment caused by the arrest of a first responder.”

San Leandro city staff said Harris, who worked in the city, was placed on paid administrative leave under his fire department collective bargaining agreement. An Alameda County Fire Department spokesperson reached Monday afternoon had no comment due to the ongoing investigation, but the department later acknowledged the firefighter’s arrest at a fire station Sunday.

“ACFD is not at liberty to disclose any additional information at this time, however; our department supports our law enforcement partners and is fully cooperating with all agencies involved,” a department statement released Monday night said. “The safety and trust of our residents are of the highest priority at all levels. Alameda County Fire Department is committed to protecting our communities and takes pride in dedicating ourselves to excellence. Our members will remain steadfast in their dedication to providing superior service to our community.”

Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.