CHP still looking for witnesses to tragic bike accident that killed WC man

Lamorinda blogger The East Bay Daze reports that the California Highway Patrol is still looking for witnesses to the June 26 traffic accident east of San Ramon that killed a 44-year-old father of two who lived in Walnut Creek and worked as a financial advisor.

John Greaves, an avid cyclist and triathlete, was killed while on a training ride that Friday just after 5 p.m. on Camino Tassajara near Dublin. A car driven by a 40-year-old Danville woman struck him from behind and veered out of control, with Greaves trapped beneath the car. The car then struck an oncoming vehicle head-on. Greaves died at the scene.

The driver of the car that killed Greaves, Hong Guo, was treated for injuries and released later that day. To date, according to the East Bay Daze, no citations have been issued. The CHP apparently needs more witnesses to contact them to tell what they saw so that the agency can decide what steps to take next.

Meanwhile, East Bay Bicycle Coalition blogger Robert Raburn blames the horrific collision that killed Greaves to "the lack of traffic improvements by Contra Costa County to accompany sprawling subdivision development."

In a June 29 post on the coalition's website, Raburn published this photo to illustrate the kind of terrain Greaves was trying to negotiate. He also wrote:

"Many of us can recall enjoyable rides on Tassajara when it was a rarely-traveled county road. Now it is 'lost bicyclist habitat,' forsaken to a steady stream of cut-through commuter traffic. The safety risk to bicyclists is especially pronounced where the patchwork of shoulder widening, bike lanes, and bike paths end, leaving a shoulderless pinch-point for about half a mile as one enters Contra Costa County.

"The crash site was at the curve immediately north of the county line. While development encroaches from either county, there have been no substantial safety improvements to the narrow rural road at the fatal crash site where it lacks even a paved shoulder.

"The speed limit at this curve is posted at 30 mph and botts dots warn drivers to slow down. Perhaps some do slow, but my own anxiety while riding through this curve on a weekend is that traffic is traveling much faster. I can only imagine the difficulty of negotiating with impatient commuter traffic that John Greaves encountered on Friday afternoon."

Walnut Creek teen charged with murder in last week's stabbing death of another teen

Walnut Creek police say that the Contra Costa District Attorney's office today filed murder charges against Daniel Avanesyan, 18, in connection with last week's stabbing of a 17-year-old Rodeo teen.

Sgt. Tom Cashion says that last Wednesday night, there was a party at a house on Clover Lane in Walnut Creek's Saranap neighborhood. During the party, a fight broke out in the house which spilled out onto the street in front of the house and involved dozens of people, police told the San Francisco Chronicle. Police also told the Chronicle that the fight may have been over "mean looks" exchanged at an earlier gathering.

In the area of Clover Lane and Nicholson Road, Jonart Yambao Jr. was fatally stabbed just after midnight. The wounded boy's friends drove him to Kaiser medical center, where he died of his injuries. Police interviewed Avanesyan, a Diablo Valley College student who lived in the nearby Tice Valley area, and later arrested him and booked him into county jail in Martinez, where he is being held on $1 million bail. Yambao and Avanesyan apparently did not know each other.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Bertolozzi at (925) 256-3553.

Readers: What is your vision for Walnut Creek and its future (especially in light of this Neiman Marcus brouhaha)?

Almost two weeks ago, I wrote a little item titled “The battle for the soul of Walnut Creek—over a luxury department store—grows more muddled.”

I was expressing my astonishment over how the issue of Broadway Plaza’s attempts to bring a Neiman Marcus to Walnut Creek has become so heated, so nasty, politicized, costly and litigious. I asked whether the soul of Walnut Creek really lies in this one retail project, a development that even its supporters have to admit represents conspicuous consumption.

Well, of course, the battle is over deeper, long-simmering tensions in town. It has to be. That is evident in the 69-and-counting comments that this soulful or soul-searching story has so far generated. Also, the comments from people on both sides of the issue are thoughtful, intelligent, and heartfelt. People in town—or at least those who have taken the time to comment on this blog—feel very, very strongly about this Neiman Marcus issue, but also about the new library project, and the question of who has the power in town and whether that power is being wielded properly.

Maybe the soul of Walnut Creek is this retail project, or maybe it lies elsewhere. If so, where?

And what is Walnut Creek to you? What kind of community should it be? What kind of future should it have? What should residents and city leaders be doing to ensure that we have that future?

Okay, these are somewhat big, maybe airy questions. But I think it would be interesting to get the vision thing down for Walnut Creek. Maybe a lack of clarity is why we’re in such a muddle over a department store—and, yeah, the new library project.

So, I invite readers, people who live, work or visit Walnut Creek to comment. I’d also love to hear from community leaders, city workers, and city officials, as well as those on both sides of the Neiman Marcus and new library debate. As usual, you can post anonymously, or , if you’re, say, Mayor Gary Skrel, you can sign your name.

Depending on if and how this little project goes, I might select some of the comments to post as free-standing articles.

Notable Walnut Creek figures--La Russa, a Nejedly--drop lawsuits against, respectively, Twitter, siblings

Dropped Lawsuit No. 1: La Russa versus Twitter

Tony La Russa, Walnut Creek's favorite Major League Baseball team manager and Animal Rescue Foundation guru, officially dropped his questionable lawsuit against social networking site Twitter. La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, sued Twitter over that annoying practice of people appropriating celebrities' names to create fake profiles. According to La Russa's complaint, the faux La Russa tweeted comments that the real La Russa found demaging to his reputation, comments that touched on La Russa's 2007 DUI arrest and made light of the deaths of two Cardinals players.

As annoyed as La Russa might have been, he didn't have much of a legal case, or so say most experts in media law and First Amendment. As the site, Techdirt.com, pointed out, the profile was obviously fake, intended as satire, and even included a fake bio.

Actually, when I saw headlines today that La Russa, the former Oakland A's manager, had dropped the lawsuit, I thought, what, didn't this case get settled already?

As Techdirt.com reports, it turns out that the Associated Press got some facts wrong when it reported last month that La Russa and Twitter had reached a settlement over the case. The AP just went with La Russa's claim that Twitter had agreed to pay legal fees and donate money to La Russa's foundation. Twitter said, oh no, we didn't settle anything, even calling La Russa's suit “an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous." Media law experts agree that if anyone was liable for La Russa being offended it was the creator of the fake profile, not Twitter.

Here's an image of the court document showing that La Russa voluntarily dropped the case June 26 and that each party will bear its own legal costs. Oh, and the image above left is La Russa's mugshot from his 2007 arrest.

Dropped Lawsuit No. 2: Nejedly versus Nejedly versus Nejedly Piepho

The Contra Costa Times Lisa Vorderbrueggen reported today that the bitter family lawsuit over the estate of the late State Sen. John A. Nejedly has come to a close, at least in Contra Costa County Superior County.

Nejedly's oldest son, John T. Nejedly, a Contra Costa Community College trustee, has dropped his lawsuit against brother, Jim Nejedly, and sister, Mary Nejedly Piepho, the county supervisor. John T. Nejedly had accused his siblings of coercing their ailing and elderly father, who died at age 91 in 2006, of disinheriting him.

The case grew bitter when close friends and family said the senator shut his oldest out of his will because he was heartbroken over his son's struggles with "cocaine and alcohol abuse" and "serious" marital troubles.

It seems that John T. started to earn a bit of a reputation in his youth. My mom recently told me that he was described as a bit of a "smart aleck" by her friend, who had been the secretary at the old Del Valle High School on Tice Valley Road, where John T. Nejedly was a student. This secretary also lived down the street from the grassy, oak-covered, multi-acre Nejedly family estate, which the senator's main asset and which was at the center of the lawsuit.

Both Jim and Mary Piepho expressed relief that the suit was over, and Piepho told Vorderbrueggen that she wished her brother the best as he "moves on with his life." I take this statement to mean that the three siblings and their families won't be getting together for Thanksgiving or other major holidays.

Infamous pedophile and child murderer named as Amber Swartz kidnapper: I hope police have the right monster

Forgive me for saying this, but I'm wary about yesterday's news that police had identified Curtis Dean Anderson as the kidnapper and killer of Pinole's Amber Swartz.

Pinole Police held a news conference, attended by Amber's mother, Kim Swartz, at which they said that Anderson had confessed to abducting Amber in June 1988 and taking her to Arizona where he killed her in a motel, before dumping her body somewhere in the desert.

Anderson made this confession in November 2007, a month before he died in prison. Anderson, as you probably know by now if you've followed news about him or Amber's case, was serving some 300 years in prison for crimes against three Vallejo girls. One was 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild, who disappeared in 1999. The other was 8-year-old Midsi Sanchez, who was kidnapped by Anderson in 2000, held for several days by Anderson and sexually assaulted before escaping.

In their press conference yesterday, Pinole police acknowledged that they have not found Amber's body and suggested the chances of finding any trace of her remains was slim, after all these 21 years. Also, it appears that Anderson didn't give specific information about where he dumped her body, and he died before police could go back and re-interview him and get more details.

In addition to no body, there is no physical evidence.

However, police insist they spent the last year and a half corroborating what Anderson told them. They also said there is strong "circumstantial evidence" to tie Anderson to the case. This circumstantial evidence includes the fact that, at the time of Amber's June 1988 disappearance, Anderson had just been paroled from prison and was hanging out  in West Contra Costa County and had become familiar with its streets by working as a cab driver.

I watched the press conference, and police didn't say much more about this circumstantial evidence. A reporter friend who was at the press conference and has covered East Bay crime for many years, including the disappearance of Amber and of other Bay Area girls, said the police were reluctant to release many details about what Anderson said, mostly because other agencies are apparently looking at other crimes Anderson either confessed to or might be linked to. Pinole police didn't want to give too much away, apparently so as not to jeopardize these other investigations.

This reporter friend added that police seem pretty "certain" they have solved the case.

I hope so. But, then, I'm not the only one who is wary. Amber's mom, Kim Swartz, said in the press conference and in an interview I heard this morning on KGO radio that she feels like it's hard to be certain that Anderson killed her daughter. With no body, and no physical evidence, she said, it's hard to find "closure." She said she was also concerned that police had not been able to administer a polygraph to Anderson before he died.

Yesterday, I also checked in with a source who works in Contra Costa law enforcement and who is familiar with some of the specifics of this investigation as well as Curtis Dean Anderson himself. This source, while hoping police are right, expressed wariness as well, and not just because of the lack of body and physical evidence.

He pointed out that Anderson liked to boast about crimes he committed, and some he may not have. Anderson displayed a strong need for attention; his tendency to string reporters and victims' families along has been well documented, most recently in an article today in the Contra Costa Times.

When his dark star shone brightest — in Solano County Jail, accused of heinous crimes against one Vallejo girl and suspected of abducting another—Curtis Dean Anderson would spew about it in his slippery, cryptic way.

In the meantime, Anderson relished the attention, the time with visitors, the chance to taunt and tease.

Then 39, he vaguely claimed an array of child abductions and killings. He told a reporter and the great-aunt of 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild that he took the girl off a Vallejo street in 1999. He wanted money for the details, where to find her alive. He tried to send reporters on errands and remote searches for bones. He used code language and appeared to feel clever.

A February 2001 San Francisco Chronicle article also focused on how Anderson was possibly one of those inmates who liked to toy with detectives, reporters, and victims' families, teasing and taunting them with possible tips, and even lying about being involved in crimes, for various reasons. His confessions about kidnapping and killing Xiana Fairchild were described as "on-and-off" in the article.

In another 2001 Chronicle article, even Anderson's own defense attorney described his client, recently convicted in the Sanchez case, as a liar whose reported confession that he kidnapped 11 other girls over 30 years is "probably a manipulative lie so he can put off being shipped off [from the relative comforts of county jail] to state prison."

I'm sorry to feel wary, and I'd like to trust in the Pinole Police Department's certainty that they have finally solved a heinous crime that haunted their town and the rest of the Bay Area for two decades. Of course, I can't imagine police and the FBI releasing this information without a high level of certainty. Authorities tend to remain pretty tight-lipped about these cases, at least publicly. Also, Kim Swartz, at the press conference, expressed hope that more definitive information would come in as a result of police announcing Anderson as her daughter's killer.

I, too, hope so.

Otherwise, Kim Swartz, who, over these two decades, has become a highly visible advocate for child safety, will have to continue to live with the fact that police probably know what happened to her daughter, but can't be absolutely sure.

Meanwhile, Anderson being implicated in Amber's death takes the heat off another interesting East Bay figure, Timothy Bindner. In an earlier post, I discussed his connection and strange fascination with the kidnappings of Amber and other Bay Area girls in the late 1980s and early 1980s.

Trader Joe's express line woes, worries and other ramblings...

Like many others, I just dropped in at Trader Joe's on my way home this evening to--what else?--pick up an easy-to-prepare dinner. 'Cause I hadn't planned anything for tonight, and we just flew back from our nation's capital last night. Yeah, yeah. Excuses, excuses for falling down on the Mom-meal-preparation job.


Anyway, picked up a package of cheese tortellini, a jar of tomato-basil marinara sauce, and some salad fixings. The tortellini would make a perfect carbo-loading Monday night dinner, especially for Soccer Son, who had his first morning of--yes, Soccer Camp--where they ran him pretty hard, and where they will run him pretty hard tomorrow. Or, so he has complained, which is one of the reasons, he says, that he wants to quit. But that's another new controversy in my turbulent life, and if anyone has any thoughts/advice for navigating through this camp issue with my son, let me know...

Back to Trader Joe's: I had placed six, seven dinner items in my basket and decided to try the "Swift Passage" line. This is for people with "15 items or fewer."

(Oh, and bravo to Trader Joe's for passing the English-language-style-book test, which says in this instance, you cannot say "15 items or less." Proper style use says it needs to be "15 items or fewer." So, Trader Joe's corporate must have some serious copyeditors on retainer to oversee their store signage.)

Unfortunately, this Swift Passage line wasn't necessarily going to guarantee me "swift passage." This line had about seven or eight people in it, as did all the other lines at the Trader Joe's check-out this Monday evening.

I overheard one of the clerks tell one of the customers that, indeed, late Monday afternoon/early evenings is one of Trader Joe's busiest shopping times. These shoppers are all people, presumably like me, returning to work from the weekend, or from a holiday weekend, suddenly remembering--damn!--I have no food in the house to make Monday night dinner for my family!

So, I'm in the Swift Passage line, behind about seven others, and I noticed a woman a couple people ahead of me with what looked like a rather full shopping cart.

Surely, her cart was loaded WITH MORE THAN 15 ITEMS!!!!

As I'm stand there waiting, I have this moral debate going on in my head. What should Trader Joe's employees do about this Swift Passage/Express Line violator?!? What should I do, as an ordinary citizen/customer, who followed the signs, got into the proper line, followed the rules???

Should I complain? Should I, at that moment, shout out to this woman that she is breaking the Swift Passage rules?!?!?

I took a deep breath and decided to wait and watch ... And to gather my evidence as to whether this woman--50ish, blond hair, bright pink, button-down shirt--was indeed, a true express line/Swift Passage violator.

This means that I decided to watch as the cashier unloaded her cart. Item by item. And to see and count whether she was, indeed, going above the "15 items or fewer" limit.

As it turns out, her cartload, indeed, exceeded the magic 15 limit.

What done her in?

What ruins many of us: Her purchase Two Buck Chuck wine.

Her 15th through 25th items were varietals of Two Buck Chuck: Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. ...

Well, I was rather heartened to see (and eavesdrop on) the Swift Passage cashier sweetly notifying the woman that she had too many items in her cart to rightfully use this line. The cashier did this while unloading her cart and scanning it through her register. So, the cashier decided to let her pass through the Swift Passage line and to give her a gentle reminder.

Which turned out to be the right strategy in this case. The woman was mortified that she had violated the Swift Passage rules. She glanced up at the sign, and almost slapped herself on the forehead, and told the cashier, "I didn't even notice. I'm so sorry." The cashier told the woman it wasn't that big of deal but that other customers might think it's unfair.

The woman seemed to blush, and she also looked very embarassed by her unintentional trangression. She continued to apologize as she ran her credit or ATM card through the machine.

Poor thing. If I had been just behind her in line, I would have said, "Don't sweat it. We all make these mistakes."

And, I would have happily said this to her ... after seeing Trader Joe's employees making an effort to enforce store rules and to remind customers of them ... and after seeing that the woman wasn't arrogantly flouting the rules, but had just made a silly little mistake...

I can't say that's been my experience in other times of my life in the express lines of supermarkets. Often, those express line violators, who try to pass through with carts loaded with 20, 30 items, display a WTF attitude that is infuriating. And the cashiers just let it go, 'cause they don't want the hassle of any potential confrontation with a customer.

On Independence Day: From our nation's capital, checking in on some sad, shocking news and ongoing controversies in Walnut Creek

Flying home tomorrow and have had a lovely time visiting family, and wandering around Virginia, Maryland and, of course, the District of Columbia.

Oh, and happy Fourth! Earlier, my son, brother, sister-in-law, and cousin were down at the Mall, and paid a visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where we stood in that cool marble structure, next to Lincoln's great statue, and re-read the words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural address. A parade, with marching bands, was making its way along Constitution Avenue. Up and down the mall, people were setting out blankets and camp chairs to mark their spot for the big Fourth of July fireworks celebration tonight. We'll be watching fireworks closer to my brother's home in Arlington.

Yes, we made it to the Holocaust Museum, the Newseum, the Smithsonium's American history collection, and to Monticello and Mount Vernon. We also drove up to Baltimore to visit a friend. Alas, no art museum visits on this trip--I'm with an 11-year-old boy with limited patience for genius paintings and sculpture--except that we stopped in to get some gelato in the concourse cafeteria of the National Gallery.

I really have been off the cyber network this week, which has probably been a mentally healthy thing.

However, I just had a few moments to catch up on some news from Walnut Creek:

--The very sad loss of Romila Higgens, 41, and her 5-year-old daughter, Indali Higgens, at Montara Beach Monday. The San Francisco Chronicle said the two were knocked down by waves at the beach, which is notorious for its rip current. Romila, known to friends and family as Angie, was the owner of All in the Kiln, a ceramic studio in Walnut Creek where children and adults can paint their own potter. Indali, called Indu, had just finished kindergarten.

-- Walnut Creek's first murder of 2009, and it involved a teen-aged boy, and it happened not too far from where I live! Jonart Suacillo Yambao, 17, was dropped off at Kaiser medical center's emergency room early Thursday with fatal stab bounds. Police later arrested Daniel Avanesyan, 18, of Walnut Creek, on suspicion of the killing. Apparently the stabbing happened at a party near Clover Lane and Nicholson Road. Police "are aware of circumstances" surrounding the killing, according to the Contra Costa Times, but are declining to comment.

Actually Clover Lane and Nicholson Road are sort of near where I live, and that intersection is not too far from another of Walnut Creek's more recent homicides. This killing involved the March 20, 2008 shooting death of Joshua Rhoads in his family's home on Boulevard Way.


--Finally, the Neiman Marcus battle continues, in pro and con letters to the editor of the Walnut Creek Journal and the Contra Costa Times, and in the comments on this blog. Fifty comments on the message board for my little commentary about how the fight over Neiman Marcus has become a battle for the soul of Walnut Creek...

Well, I'm glad to provide a forum for people to discuss this issue, perhaps in ways they didn't feel they could in other forums. I'm impressed by the thought that people have put into their comments.