Either way, if you weren’t a dessert person before this, you will be after reading this take on the region’s hottest new bakeries — from a Walnut Creek shop crafting Romanian specialties to an Oakland cheesecake house and a Santa Clara bakery where a couple has found their encore career in Portuguese recipes.

East Bay Bakery, Danville

Across the street from Blackhawk Plaza, this stand-out bakery with the simple name has been wowing locals with its sweet and savory offerings since it opened in July. Glass cases display in jewel-like fashion the laminated croffles, curry puffs and pretzels that have become proprietor-baker Gaby Lubaba’s signatures. East Bay Bakery has no seating but the counter offers views of the open kitchen, where the bakery crew prepares Lubaba’s unique spins on danishes, cookies and croissants. (We recently spied both a baklava croissant and a pastrami-cheese version.)

Lubaba, who made our 2022 list of Rising Stars, offers a wide selection of classic treats and fresh baked breads, too, including rye brownies and a craveable olive fougasse. But there is a certain magic in the seasonal items — hello, pistachio chocolate escargot — and treats inspired by her native Indonesia. Be sure to get your hands on the crispy beef curry puffs filled with real curry leaves. They go fast.

The treat: Made from buttery croissant dough, the croffle ($5) is a crowd-favorite that taps into something deeply nostalgic. The crispy, almost caramelized outside leads to a chewy, satisfying interior that’s buttery and not too sweet. Perfection.

Details: Open 8 a.m.-2 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. weekends at 6000C Crow Canyon Road in  Danville. Also Saturdays at the Orinda Farmers Market and Sundays at the Walnut Creek Farmers Market; https://theeastbaybakery.com

LeLe Cake, Los Gatos

Elena Leskina says she’s pretty fearless when it comes to challenges — whether it’s “new business, new skills, new country.” An electrical engineer by trade, she taught herself how to bake intricate desserts by watching YouTube videos during her young daughter’s two-hour naps back in Moscow. When she and her family immigrated to the U.S. five years ago, she opened a commercial kitchen.

Last June, she launched LeLe Cake, a cute all-day cafe where brunch is as popular as the pastries and custom cakes. It’s worth waiting for a table to try one of the Euro-style dishes that customers rave about — the Syrniki (Russian cheese pancakes) with berries, perhaps, Homemade Salted Salmon Toast or the Gruyere Waffle with goat cheese and onion marmalade.

If you didn’t save room for dessert, stop at the bakery case for a takeout order of, say, Kartoshka (chocolate cake “truffles” topped with fruit), Pavlova or Trifle. The full-size cakes are multi-layer, highly decorated beauties with selections such as the Choco Girl, Poppyseed & Lemonade, flaky Napoleon cake or the Sever, a Norwegian national favorite topped with meringue.

The treat: The star is Leskina’s version of the Medovik, a Russian honey cake layered with fresh raspberries and a light white chocolate and sour cream frosting. It’s available by the slice (three layers) or as a full-size cake (five or six layers).

Details: Open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at 14178 Blossom Hill Road, Los Gatos; https://lelecake.me/

Crumble & Whisk, Oakland

Charles Farrier’s somewhat random entry into the bakery world came when a coworker asked if he could contribute to a potluck dinner. “I was like, ‘Sure.’ I brought a cheesecake. Everyone loved it,” he recalls.

That revelation triggered a slow and deep dive into the art of baking, with Farrier studying cookbooks, experimenting with different styles of cheesecakes, and then distributing them at barbershops and businesses along Oakland’s MacArthur Boulevard and later at farmers markets. This December, he opened a brick-and-mortar location in the Laurel District, where he prepares not just the confection that put him on the map but scrumptious pastries, artfully decorated cookies and so much more.

“This is about building up community, so people can get to know me as a neighborhood staple,” Farrier says. For his breakfast peeps, he has coffee cake, overnight oats and huge cinnamon buns with a jiggly, custard-like frosting. (Try to get them hot.) Folks celebrating a special occasion – or who just want to treat themselves – can order his super-creamy cheesecakes in full and puck-sized versions, with vegan options to boot. And for dinner, you can pick up a flaky-crusted pot pie and a banana pudding that’d fool your Southern grandma, with vanilla wafers and the obligatory toupee of whipped topping.

The treat: The much-lauded cheesecakes are not dense but rather melting, creamy delights with seasonal surprises. Cold weather might see a maple-pecan crumble or apple-cider cake version with chunks of fruit. In the summer folks, rave about the blackberry and corn cheesecake, made with a puree of off-the-cob kernels, thyme and brown butter.

Details: Open 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday at 4104 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland; www.crumbleandwhisk.com.

Little Sky Bakery, Menlo Park

For years, Tian Mayimin was focused on the law. Since 2017, it’s been all about leavening.

In the beginning, the self-taught baker delivered her naturally leavened breads, baked in her Menlo Park home kitchen, to neighbors. Then she became the darling of the Peninsula and South Bay farmers market circuit with her creative lineup of loaves. Next came pop-ups. And soon she set her sights on a dedicated brick-and-mortar.

Last March, she and her team opened a storefront location on Santa Cruz Avenue near the Caltrain station. Late in the year, she expanded the hours of their indoor pop-up at the State Street Market in Los Altos, all while maintaining a strong farmers market presence. They staff 16 markets every week, with four seasonal ones starting up again this spring.

With the expansions came more innovation. Pistachio Bundt Cakes and Caramel Nut Tarts for the holiday season. Roman-style flatbreads. Baozi, yeast-leavened, filled buns. Open-face lox sandwiches on European rye. Jalapeno Cheddar Rings. A signature Challah made with orange juice and honey and brushed with olive oil. And Volkornbrot, the hefty German loaf nicknamed the king of seeded breads. Some creations are available weekly; some rotate into the lineup.

The treat: The popular Raisin-Walnut loaves go fast. And keep your eye out for batches of the Provencal herbal flatbread called fougasse.

Details: Open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily at 506 Santa Cruz Ave. in Menlo Park, with a permanent indoor pop-up at State Street Market in Los Altos; https://littleskybakery.com/

European Delights, Walnut Creek

Since opening in July on Walnut Creek’s east side, this bakery has become a haven for European expats and others craving Italian coffee and classic pastries without gobs of frosting or other sugar bombs. From the open kitchen, Romanian co-owner and head baker Rica Zaharia, a native of Transylvania, greets customers with a smile and talks them through the day’s fresh bakes while the Lavazza brews on the counter.

The glass case holds a medley of goodies, like almond and honey shortbread, apple morning buns and giant, 7-inch cookies packed with caramel and chocolate chips. Some items, like the covri dog, a frankfurter wrapped in golden pastry dough, are a nod to Zaharia’s Romanian roots. Others are collaborations between Zaharia and staff baker, Vida. One such creation, the tiramisu cookie, features pastry cream sandwiched between soft, round ladyfinger-like cookies.

The treat: We’re big fans of the börek. Thin, flaky, phyllo-like pastry dough is filled with ham, vegetables, cheeses and other savory ingredients. Our favorite is the mushroom ($5), which has flecks of herbs and a distinct truffle flavor. Keep an eye out for heart-shaped treats in February.

Details: Open 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday and until 2 p.m. Sunday, at 2236A Oak Grove Road in Walnut Creek; https://european-delights.com.

Max’s Cakes, Hayward

This classic, family-owned bakery opened five weeks ago and has already added much-needed pizzazz to downtown Hayward. Horchata cheesecake and café de olla and buñelo cupcakes, nods to baker Max Soto‘s Mexican-American heritage, line the pastry case alongside cookies and brick-sized slices of his Instagram-famous layer cakes. Those cakes come in five flavors, including coconut cream, burnt almond and confetti, and are already proving to be top sellers.

After ordering your dessert, take a seat — or a selfie inside the giant picture frame against the white subway-tiled wall. Or spend some time admiring the historic black and white photos of downtown Hayward lining the walls. Soto appeared on Buddy Valastro’s “Big Time Bake” in 2020 and became the youngest contestant ever to win a “Food Network” competition. There are some pretty cute photos of him eating cake as a baby, too.

The treat: You have to get a slice of cake ($8). Two, actually. The 24-Karrot cake is super moist, topped with cream cheese frosting and brimming with shredded carrots and toasted walnuts. If you’re a lemon fiend, Lemon Supreme, a lemon cake layered with lemon curd and vanilla buttercream, is your jam.

Details: Opens at 11 a.m. Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday-Sunday at 1007 B St., Hayward; https://maxscakesofficial.wixsite.com

Portuguese Tasty Desserts, Santa Clara

What’s new in Santa Clara is delightfully old school: a bakery specializing in nostalgic Portuguese recipes that made their way from the Azores to the Bay Area many decades ago.

When Teresa and Nelio Defreitas retired from school district careers (she as a kitchen supervisor, he as a campus maintenance manager), they decided to resurrect her parents’ Portuguese Bakery, which had been in business locally for more than 40 years. They found a spot and opened a year ago.

“This is what we love to do, especially the interaction with the customers,” she said. “We have such an amazing mix in this community.”

Customers come from as far away as Sacramento for the pillowy Portuguese sweet bread, pastel de natas (custard tarts), rice pudding, a rich, smooth flan and other goodies. The malasadas — the Portuguese doughnuts so popular in Hawaii — are available in 12 flavors (including guava and custard) on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Know you won’t have time to cook for that upcoming potluck? They will bake to your specifications. “Bring me your Pyrex dish and I’ll fill it up with rice pudding,” Teresa said.

The old-school touches extend beyond the recipes. Walk in and you’ll be welcomed, as all customers are, with a complementary cup of coffee, sweet bread samples and conversation. You won’t walk out empty-handed.

The treat: Biscoitos, the not-too-sweet cookie rings, come in almond, lemon, cinnamon, anise, chocolate and other flavors and are perfect for dunking in coffee or snacking.

Details: Open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at 1085 El Camino Real, Santa Clara; www.facebook.com/PortugueseTastyDesserts/.

Simurgh, Emeryville

If you took a bagel, crusted it in sesame seeds and stretched it out like one of those old-timey hoops kids pushed with a stick, you’d get simit. Every Turkish city has shops hawking simit – and around here, there’s no better place to try them than Hatice Yildiz’s cafe that opened on San Pablo Avenue in late 2022.

A daughter of Istanbul restaurateurs who took an interesting journey to baking – she got a PhD in religious studies in Berkeley – Yildiz makes simit that’s crackling outside, soft and stretchy inside and kissed with the smoke of the oven. Order it with lox and cream cheese or, more traditionally, with tahini and grape molasses. There’s charred-top rice pudding, too, and baklava with housemade phyllo and imported “emerald” pistachios, famous for their startling green hue and nutty-fresh taste. Try the chocolate version, whose honey and bitter cocoa notes somehow improves on the original.

A heartier bite can be found in boreks, quichelike pies with fillings of goat cheese, mushrooms and kale, and stuffed eggplants that were sun-dried in Turkey. Yildiz plans to diversify her savory side this year with lahmacun, as well, a thin flatbread topped with minced beef, peppers and herbs and baked to perfection. (Just don’t call it “Turkish pizza.”)

The treat: The Russian/Ukrainian honey cake is a masterfully constructed slab of housemade graham crackers, condensed milk and brown butter. The sweet-sensory overload is like sticking your head in a honeybee hive, without the bees.

Details: Open daily from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at 4125 San Pablo Ave. in Emeryville; www.simurghbakery.com.

Forest & Flour, Fremont

Many Bay Area residents with dietary issues have found sweet salvation at Sway Soturi’s farmers market booths over the past few years. Now the San Jose wellness entrepreneur can offer a larger menu of organic and gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, soy-free and corn-free savories and sweets to a broader audience at her new cafe in Fremont’s Mission San Jose district.

“We try to make things that people would miss,” said Soturi, who started baking allergen-friendly fare for herself. Take, for example, monkey bread and soup. Her Monkey Party muffins are as ooey-gooey as expected, thanks to a coconut-sugar caramel. The creamy, satisfying Clam Chowder is made with chicken broth, coconut milk and cashews, which naturally add an interesting nutty tone.

You’ll also find gluten-free muffins (carrot, matcha and seasonal), baguettes, brioche, chocolate chip cookies and more. For lunch, she and her team offer congee and French toast too.

By the way, this greenery-filled cafe is located near Mission Peak, which is good to keep in mind if you need fuel for a trip up or replenishment after coming down.

The treat: The big hit is the aromatic Lavender-Lemon Bread. It’s available by the loaf or as a small toast order, with a side of locally made Rose Petal Jam. Soturi also showcases other like-minded Bay Area purveyors.

Details: Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday-Friday and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday at 43587 Mission Blvd., Fremont; https://forestandflour.com/.

Bake Sum, Oakland

As a kid, Joyce Tang loved to eat at bakeries in Oakland’s Chinatown. “When I got older, I didn’t really feel like I saw anyone iterating those types of flavors at the patisseries I’d visit around the Bay Area,” she says.

Her solution: Quit a Facebook job, land an internship at a three-star Michelin restaurant in Spain, then come back and start her own bakery specializing in memories from her childhood. The philosophy at Bake Sum is pastries should not just be beautiful (though they are, wonderfully so), but also meaningful to a staff of predominantly Asian and female bakers.

“We always try to find nostalgic flavors that speak to us and our upbringings,” Tang says.

Walk into the charmingly decorated shop in Grand Lake and you might see lilikoi “mochi bites” and loco-moco danish with a meat patty, gravy and runny egg. There’s a croissant and Spam musubi crossover called a “crusubi” and an okonomiyaki danish with garlic oil-roasted mushrooms, Kewpie mayo and furikake. It all sounds hearty, but with the skill of the bakers in making delicate, flaky doughs, you’ll be ready for seconds in no time.

The treat: The green-onion croissant is a popular offering that blends two styles of scallion pancakes from Northern and Southern China. It has a pleasantly bready, oily and crunchy exterior, with a soft interior of scallions, toasted sesame oil and sea salt.

Details: Open 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday-Sunday and 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday and Monday at 3249 Grand Ave. in Oakland; www.bakesum.com.

Moves, expansions and other new-ish bakeries to check out:

Lolita Bakery Cafe: Silvia Leiva Browne has supplemented her Hillsdale Shopping Center location, which opened in 2018, with a larger retail shop where fans of Argentinean baked goods can find her alfajores, empanadas and more. 3790 S. El Camino Real, San Mateo; www.lolitaalfajores.com

Republic of Cake: This longtime Orinda bakery known for cupcakes moved to Danville in 2022, expanding its offerings to include more pastries, quiches, sandwiches and ice cream. 730 Camino Ramon, Suite 196, Danville; www.republicofcake.com

Wingen Bakery: Peek into a new bread room and enjoy extra seating with a bistro-style menu of breakfast and lunch items at this recently-expanded Livermore bakery known for bread and pastries. 50 S. Livermore Ave., Livermore; www.wingenbakery.com

Ono Bakehouse: The East Bay’s only dedicated Hawaiian bakery has been open since Dec. 2020 and continues to wow with malasadas, savory ham-and-pineapple buns and tropical Queen Emma cake. Best to pre-order. 1922 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley; https://ono-bakehouse.square.site

Sunday Bakeshop: StarChefs 2022 Rising Star Award winner Elaine Lau marries classic French training with the Asian flavors of her childhood for magically nostalgic treats that have mass appeal: White Rabbit cookies, a char siu croissant, Thai tea milk buns and halo halo cake are all stunners. 5931 College Ave., Oakland; www.thesundaybakeshop.com

It took only a couple of tweets to plunge Elon Musk into the morass of a securities fraud trial that could cost him billions of dollars from his rapidly diminishing fortune.

The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer is set to be the star witness at a jury trial that starts Tuesday in San Francisco federal court over his infamous tweets 4 1/2 years ago about a plan to take the electric-car maker private with “funding secured.”

Lawyers for the shareholders will try to show jurors that Musk lied in the statement, and that it caused them deep losses from wild stock price swings over a 10-day period before the plan was abandoned. Musk’s defense team will work to tear down that narrative.

Losing a class-action case of this magnitude could put Musk on the hook for damages in the billions of dollars, according to Adam Pritchard, a professor at University of Michigan Law School.

“Elon enjoys a good fight,” Pritchard said. “He has a lot of money, and is apparently willing to take substantial risks with that money.”

The trial comes as Musk’s wealth has dwindled from a peak of $340 billion in November 2021. He became the first person in history to lose more than $200 billion, all while he spent $44 billion to acquire Twitter Inc. Last month, he was dethroned as the world’s richest person and Tesla’s stock plummeted 37% since Dec. 1, with the electric car maker facing increased competition and a looming recession.

The stir created by the August 2018 tweets is best remembered for throwing Musk into the orbit of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It resulted in a pledge from Musk to have his future social media posts screened by a Tesla lawyer.

Investors must prove Musk knew his tweets were misleading, and that they were “material,” or important to a reasonable investor. Shareholders would also need to tie Musk’s tweets to their trading losses.

US District Judge Edward Chen has already hobbled Musk with a pretrial ruling that the tweets were reckless and false — and he will tell the 12-member jury to assume that from the get-go, to set the parameters of the trial.

That instruction to the jury puts Musk at a “huge disadvantage,” Pritchard said.

To beat back the allegations he was deceitful, Musk has said in court filings he may call on others who can vouch for the take-private plan, including friend and confidant Larry Ellison, as well as executives at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and private-equity firm Silver Lake Management.

Musk’s lawyers have failed repeatedly to persuade Chen not to share his finding with the jury, saying as recently as last week that it could be “highly prejudicial” to the CEO’s defense.

A lawyer for Musk declined to comment before the start of the trial and an attorney for the shareholders didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Musk has insisted his short-lived plan to take Tesla private was solid based on discussions he had with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. He subpoenaed the governor of the Kingdom’s Private Investment Fund to testify at the trial, but withdrew the request after attorneys for Yasir Al-Rumayyan argued he isn’t legally obligated to show up.

Proving Musk’s state of mind will be nuanced and tricky. Ordinary investors understand that deals can get done even if they’re not 100% nailed down, Pritchard said. Musk might have believed in his ability to take Tesla private, even if he wasn’t across the finish line yet.

“Elon Musk is an achiever, he gets things done,” Pritchard said. “If he says he’s going to take Tesla private, in his mind he’s going to take Tesla private. Did you ever decide that you were going to put a rocket in space? Elon did. He did it. He believes in Elon. He’s a little crazy. Which is part of the secret of his success. He might believe that because he’s Elon Musk.”

–With assistance from Pierre Paulden.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

National Weather Service predictions showed calm, chilly air Tuesday in the Bay Area. Highs in the mid-50s were consistent throughout, with San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland each expected to top out at 55 degrees. Overnight temperatures could drop to the mid-30s, however, accompanied by calm winds and a dry, rainless night.

Those showers should diminish by Thursday, however, as temperatures were forecast to drop to highs in the low 50s before slowly rising to the high 50s by Saturday, giving the Bay Area its first completely dry weekend of 2023.

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/2023/01/15/fremont-to-pay-2-6-million-to-former-firefighter-to-settle-retaliation-suit/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/15/fremont-to-pay-2-6-million-to-former-firefighter-to-settle-retaliation-suit/#respond Sun, 15 Jan 2023 15:00:59 +0000 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/?p=8716922&preview=true&preview_id=8716922 Fremont has agreed to pay millions to a former firefighter who said she was forced out of the city’s fire department for speaking out against the unfair dismissal of a female recruit.

Diane Hendry, who filed a retaliation lawsuit against the city in August 2018, received a $2.6 million payment as part of the settlement, ending a five-year legal battle between the former fire captain and Fremont.

Fremont is still facing two other lawsuits that accuse city officials of retaliatory behavior. In November, the family of the late Fremont Police Capt. Fred Bobbitt filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city for allegedly contributing to his death last year, saying he was harassed by senior officials after refusing to violate state law during negotiations with the Fremont Police Association. The same month, senior Fremont police detective Michael Gebhardt filed a retaliation lawsuit against the city in which he claimed to be targeted for criticizing the Fremont Police Department.

Hendry, who joined the Fremont Fire Department in 1993 and agreed to retire later this year as part of the settlement, sued after experiencing two years of what she calls “a campaign of retaliation” by the leaders of the fire department.

According to the Fremont native, the retaliation began following her role in the investigation of the dismissal of a female recruit in 2016, when Hendry was a division chief of administration. The recruit had been released from the city’s training academy for failing performance tests, but disputed that she had failed the tests.

Hendry and then-Fire Chief Geoff LaTendresse reviewed tapes of the tests and determined that the recruit had indeed passed.

“It was my assignment at the time and I did my job. It was indisputable that this woman passed these tests,” Hendry said in an interview. The recruit was reinstated, and an investigation was launched. The recruit filed a lawsuit against the city and settled in 2017.

As a result, Division Chief Rick Cory was removed from his position as head of the training academy. The deputy chief of training at the time, Chris Shelley, retired before the investigation was complete, and a captain who was an instructor at the academy, Matt Loughran-Smith, retired two days after the results were released, according to court documents.

“I was widely blamed for what happened. I was left out of meetings, people stopped talking when I entered a room, nobody would sit next to me. It got to the point where people began making complaints about me, and I knew I was on the way out,” Hendry said. “I had been part of the city for 25 years; I was promoted up through the ranks and I built all of these relationships and suddenly I was completely shut out. It was horrible.”

Hendry said that she was isolated, removed from certain duties and excluded from critical meetings regarding the recruit’s reinstatement.

In depositions provided to Hendry’s lawyers, her accusations were backed up by two other division chiefs who worked at the department at the time. “It seemed she was blamed for everything,” one said during a deposition.

In 2018, Hendry decided to transfer to the city’s police department on a temporary basis, but said her requests to transfer back to the fire department were never approved, despite a number of positions opening up in the department. Hendry was also still paid by the fire department, rather than the police department, during this time.

A performance evaluation written by LaTendresse in June 2017 said that Hendry was “one of the most dedicated people” and was consistently positive, professional and trustworthy.

“One of the first things we look at with these cases is performance history, but her performance reviews are the most glowing I’ve ever seen,” Hendry’s attorney, Deborah Kochan, said in an interview.

In an email sent in 2020, Jacobson told Hendry that her duties had been reassigned and that her return to the department would be “disruptive” because of reasons that included the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfire season.

In another email sent in response to a further request by Hendry to be transferred in 2021, Jacobson told Hendry that he could not accommodate the request as she had not served in the department for two years.

In a later deposition, Jacobson said that he felt Hendry’s presence on the force would disrupt team cohesiveness if she were transferred back.

“Based on my personal experience of having people that have left organizations and/or brought lawsuits against organizations that they still are members of, it just doesn’t end well,” Jacobson said during the deposition.

Hendry said she believes her gender played a role in how she was treated. “There were five women in Fremont Fire for most of my career. I was hired in 1993, and we didn’t hire another woman until 2013. By that time, the others had retired, so there were only two of us in the department,” Hendry said. “I was actively trying to recruit more women, which was part of my duties, but I think people didn’t like that. There was a perception that we were lowering our standards. But, I also think I was targeted for simply speaking up; for going against the culture.”

Two investigations were launched after Hendry took her concerns to human resources, but she was told that sufficient evidence was not found to support her claims.

During a deposition, former Deputy Chief Amiel Thurston claimed that the issues came down to Hendry isolating herself from members of the department after he became interim chief following LeTendresse’s retirement in 2017.

However, Hendry maintained that she had fully supported Thurston’s appointment and that she had recommended him for the position, which LaTendresse and Assistant City Manager Brian Stott confirmed in court.

“Thurston came up through the ranks with Diane, and they always had a good working relationship,” Kochan said.

“His best friend was one of the people disciplined after the 2016 investigation. After that, he turned against her. I asked him why everything between him and Diane changed, and he realized he needed an answer and came up with this idea that she was jealous of him – and the city ran with it.”

Thurston confirmed in a deposition that Rick Cory was his best friend, and the godfather of one of his children.

A trial date was scheduled for November, but the city reached a settlement with Hendry in early December.

In response to a request for an interview, the city’s communications department said in an email that no one was available to comment as the case involved a “personnel matter.”

The two other lawsuits alleging retaliation by Fremont city officials are still pending. Bobbitt died by suicide on Feb. 21, 2022, at age 54, after serving on the Fremont police force for more than 32 years. He allegedly faced retaliation from former Fremont City Manager Mark Danaj, who was charged with embezzlement last March, and retired Fremont Police Chief Kimberly Petersen.

Bobbitt filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing in March 2021, and a claim with the city in May 2021. That December, an arbiter found that the city’s anti-retaliation policy had been violated. Bobbitt was also mentioned in the retaliation lawsuit filed by Gebhardt.

“I truly thought that when I spoke up, city leadership would step up,” Hendry said. “But these things will happen again. The needle hasn’t moved forward.”

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.

As stormy skies returned Friday, California officials said that the relentless rains that have eased years of punishing drought have come at a terrible cost, already ranking among the Golden State’s deadliest natural disasters — with more rain on the way.

“We’ve now experienced multiple large and damaging storm systems and there are more on the way,” California Office of Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward said in a Friday news briefing. “We’ve experienced destructive flooding of homes and infrastructure, levee breaches and overtopping, mudslides hurricane force winds in many of our communities, and even had a tornado touch down in Northern California. But let me emphasize, we are not out of the woods yet. The threat to communities remains, and waters will continue to rise even after these storms have passed.”

David Lawrence, a meteorologist and emergency response specialist with the National Weather Service Western Region Headquarters, added that over the last 18 days, the state has seen a statewide average of just over 9 inches of rainfall.

“That is a remarkable number,” Lawrence said. “Some locations have seen their average annual rainfall already occur in just the last 18 days.”

Lawrence said that while the weather service did not expect Friday’s downpours “to be overly significant,” another set of storms arriving Saturday “will bring widespread heavy rainfall in some locations, very heavy mountain snowfall as well, in addition to gusty winds up to 50 to 60 mph.”

“Not only could that rain produce additional flooding — and certainly we’ll see some major impacts to travel in the mountains — but those winds could also blow over trees and bring additional power outages,” Lawrence said. “We do see an additional one or two storm systems for early next week before hopefully we do finally get at least a very brief break in the weather toward the latter portions of next week.”

Authorities ticked off the statewide toll to date from the remarkable deluges since Christmas that have fallen on a state that had been parched after a series of dry winters.

• 6,000 Californians under evacuation order
• More than 20,000 still without electric power
• More than 60 major road closures, at least 32 of which are ongoing
• Seven waterways still under watch for major flooding
• Emergency declarations in 41 of California’s 58 counties
• 19 confirmed deaths — a figure that would rise to 20 if a 5-year-old boy missing since being swept away by floodwaters Monday in the San Luis Obispo County town of San Miguel isn’t found alive.

“These storms are amongst the most deadly natural disasters in the modern history of our state,” Ward said.

Authorities urged people to avoid travel over the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, heed precautions and not drive over flooded roadways.

Ward said her office is coordinating with authorities in Monterey, Santa Cruz and Merced counties “whose regions we expect to continue to be vulnerable to these next two or three storm systems, and to include the possibility of a complete cutoff of the Monterey Peninsula.

Monterey County communications coordinator Maia Carroll said Friday the Salinas River already flooded rural roads farm fields near Chualar, causing temporary closures Thursday.

But it will remain a threat through the weekend to potentially flood and close access to Highway 68 between Salinas and Monterey and other major roadways, possibly even Highway 1. If all those roadways have to be closed, the Monterey Peninsula, home to some 54,000 people in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Pebble Beach, could be isolated, perhaps for days. Carroll said ambulances and other emergency equipment have been positioned on both sides of areas where roads might have to close just in case.

“It depends on Mother Nature when we can exhale,” Carroll said.

Cindy Messer, lead deputy director at the California Department of Water Resources, said the Salinas is one of seven rivers and waterways under flood watch around the state. Others include the Sacramento River at Ord Ferry, the Navarro River at Navarro in Mendocino County, the Russian River in Guerneville, Bear Creek at McKee Road in Merced, and the San Joaquin River.

The silver lining, Messer said, is the relentless downpours have eased the state’s withering drought. Overall, statewide reservoir levels remain at about 75% of their average for this time of year, she said. That’s because the largest reservoirs were so low they take a lot of water to fill.

Lake Oroville was at about 47% of its full capacity, Shasta Lake at about 42% of its capacity, Folsom Lake at 42% of its capacity and lastly San Luis reservoir at 40% of its capacity.

“We’ve had an amazing amount of rainfall,” she said.

Six-hour rain totals from the National Weather Service as of noon Friday showed just under half of an inch had fallen in San Francisco and San Mateo between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. Oakland received one-quarter of an inch, and Walnut Creek had one-third. A one and one-half inch downpour occurred over the Santa Cruz Mountains while San Jose was virtually dry with just one-tenth of an inch.

Here are the past 6 hour precip totals for this morning #CAwx pic.twitter.com/4oEfsWfY2b

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 13, 2023

The weather service projected between a quarter and one-half of an inch of new rain in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland on Friday night. On the coast in places such as Half Moon Bay and Pacifica, forecasts showed half of an inch of rain paired with wind gusts reaching 30 mph. Projections were lower in the East Bay, with Livermore and Walnut Creek expected to reach no more than one-quarter inch of rain Friday night.

Weather service meteorologist Eleanor Dhuyvetter said Saturday is a bigger concern, but those storms aren’t expected to be among the strongest the Bay Area has seen in the new year.

Even so, “with things just so saturated right now, it really doesn’t take much for some of the flooding issues, and that’s kind of the impacts we’re seeing.”

Saturday forecasts called for wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour and an inch of rainfall in downtown San Jose. In Oakland, rain totals could be as high as one inch with 24 mph winds, and San Francisco could see three-quarters of an inch with 21 mph gusts.

Sunday could be even more moderate, with no more than one-quarter of an inch expected in urban centers. But the rain was predicted to linger, with forecasts showing wet conditions lasting into Thursday.

Power outages, many caused by falling trees, were still afflicting thousands of customers in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. Tracking site poweroutage.us Friday afternoon showed 3,665 out in Santa Cruz County and 1,589 in Santa Clara County.

Caltrans closed highway 92 in both directions from highway 35 to Pilarcitos Creek Road Thursday after a massive sinkhole opened up. As of Friday, there was no estimated time of reopening for the key roadway.

On Friday night, Santa Clara County staff issued new evacuation warnings to watershed areas near the Uvas Reservoir, Pacheco Pass River Basin and intersection of Highway 101 and Bolsa Road “due to the weather conditions and potential risks of flooding to the general public and property.”

Those areas under evacuation warning risk include Pacheco Pass River Basin for those living in the areas of:

• El Toro Road south of Highway 152 to Bloomfield Avenue
• Lovers Lane between Shore Road and Highway 152

Watershed Areas of the Uvas Reservoir including those living:

• South of Uvas Reservoir including Thousand Trails RV Park and Uvas Pines RV Park
• South of Sycamore Drive and Watsonville Road
• Homes south of Lions Peak
• South of Day Road and Geri Lane
• Watsonville and Highway 152

Highway 101 and Bolsa Road:

• South of Hwy 152, East of Highway 101
• South of Pacheco Pass (Highway 152) and east of Highway 101
• South of Luchessa Avenue and east of Thomas Road
• East of Santa Teresa Boulevard to Castro Valley Road
• North of Castro Valley Road to Luchessa Avenue
• North of Highway 25 between Highway 101 & Bloomfield Road
• West of Bloomfield Avenue between Highway 25 and Pacheco Pass (Highway 152)
• East of Highway 101 to Pacheco Pass (Highway 152)

Residents and visitors “should gather their household members, pets, personal items, important documents, prescription medication, change of clothes, non-perishable foods, water, extra batteries, flashlights, and phone chargers” and “prepare to evacuate to a safe location,” staff said in a statement.

Along the Central Coast, the weather service issued high surf warnings and a coastal flood advisory, citing a combination of high tide cycles, strong winds and heavy rain runoff.

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the weather service issued a winter storm warning set to last from 4 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Tuesday, advising travel could be “very difficult to impossible,” and to expect one to two feet of snow at the Tahoe Basin and three to five feet above elevations of 7,000 feet. By Friday afternoon, chain control checkpoints were in place on Interstate 80 and Highway 50.

Staff writer Rick Hurd and George Kelly contributed.

An estimated 675 Bay Area jobs are being lost as a result of decisions orchestrated by seven companies that are in the tech, advanced manufacturing, or biotech sectors, according to a Bay Area News Group review of official notices received by the state Employment Development Department.

Jabil; Verily Life Sciences, which is a moonshot company launched by Google owner Alphabet; Flexport; Stitch Fix; Scale AI; Arris Composites; and Janssen Pharmaceuticals are among the latest companies to reveal plans for job cuts, the EDD notices show.

In addition, another group of workers with Flagship Facilities Services, while not tech staffers, lost their jobs in Menlo Park as a result of lessened requirements by Facebook app owner Meta Platforms, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the EDD.

Here are details of some of the most recent disclosures of Bay Area layoffs by tech or biotech firms:

• Jabil, a contract electronics manufacturer, has decided to eliminate 205 jobs in Alameda County. These include 166 job cuts in Fremont and another 39 in Livermore. The layoffs are slated to occur on March 7. “We do not anticipate that these employees will return to work in the foreseeable future,” Alicia Marjon, a Jabil human resources manager, stated in the WARN notice. These Jabil job cuts are expected to be permanent.
• Verily Life Sciences has decided to reduce staffing by 119 positions at its headquarters in South San Francisco. The company is a life sciences moonshot that was launched by Google owner Alphabet. “The separation of employment of the affected employees with the company in connection with a company-wide reduction in force is expected to be permanent and there will not be any bumping rights,” Kerrie Peraino, chief people officer with Verily, stated in the WARN letter. The Verily layoffs are due to be effective on March 12.
• Flexport, a supply-chain software startup, is cutting 120 jobs in San Francisco. The layoffs are described as “permanent,” the EDD public website shows.
• Stitch Fix, an online apparel and personal styling service, has decided to chop 97 jobs in San Francisco on a permanent basis. The layoffs are due to be effective on March 6.
• Scale AI, an artificial intelligence company, is cutting 68 jobs in San Francisco, saying the staff reductions are permanent. The layoffs began in late December and are due to occur in waves that will be complete by March 31.
• Arris Composites is cutting 65 jobs in Berkeley. Arris uses advanced technologies to help create cutting-edge products and materials for a wide range of uses. The cuts are permanent and were effective on Nov. 7 of last year. However, they were not posted until Jan. 10 of this year.
• Janssen Pharmaceuticals is cutting one job in Vacaville. The layoff is due to be effective on March 10.

“Flagship Facility Services has decided that it must permanently lay off 126 of its employees at Meta Platforms’ Menlo Park facility,” Michele Babb, a Flagship Facility vice president, said in a WARN notice to the EDD.

The company specifically provides culinary and cafeteria services to Meta Platforms. The terminations are scheduled to occur on March 6.

“The employees are represented by Unite Here! Local 19 and have bumping rights as may be provided by their collective bargaining agreement,” Babb stated in the WARN notice.

The famous local author wrote in his 1952 epic East of Eden that “sometimes it raged and boiled, bank full, and then it was a destroyer.”

“I think the public forgets,” Nieto said at a news briefing Thursday afternoon, “how dangerous the Salinas River can be.”

In the Bay Area, rain was expected overnight Thursday, but no more than one-tenth of an inch was expected in urban areas. Light rains are forecast to return Friday for the Monterey and San Francisco bay areas, delivering half and inch of rain to San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, with up to an inch falling Saturday, and delivering snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

But in Monterey County, authorities and weather forecasters are concerned that a wave of water from storms earlier in the week is making its way down the Salinas River and up the Salinas Valley.

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office ordered evacuations for low-lying areas along the river in preparation of floods that could potentially close overland routes into the area, isolating residents and businesses.

Officials prepared for Highway 68, River Road, Reservation Road, Blanco Road, multiple secondary roads, and even Highway 1 to potentially close.

“There is a high probability that the Salinas River will flood all access points into the Monterey Peninsula at some point on Thursday… lasting through Sunday,” said a statement from Monterey County Supervisor Wendy Root Askew. “This means that anyone who is on the peninsula when flooding occurs will not be able to leave. Conversely, anyone who is not on the peninsula will not be able to enter.”

Monterey County last saw the Salinas River flood like that in 1995. In March of that year, river gauges at Spreckels, the community a few miles south of Salinas where the East of Eden movie was filmed in 1955, recorded a record level of 30.29 feet, said National Weather Service meteorologist Cindy Palmer.

Flood stage at Spreckels is 23 feet, and the river was projected to reach that level late Thursday night and crest Friday morning at 24.4 feet. That’s between its significant flood stage at 24 feet and moderate flood stage at 26 feet, Palmer said. Anything over 28 feet would be considered major flooding, she said.

But Monterey County officials stressed that a lot of factors need to be considered. Askew said at a news conference Thursday that high tides will play a role as the river flows down the watershed. And flooded areas along the route could spread out over farm fields and lessen the amount of water going down the river channel.

“We are basing this information on the best information we have at the time, and it changes daily and sometimes hourly because mother nature is fickle,” added Nieto.

By Thursday afternoon in Monterey County, there already were reports of flooding upriver in Chualar. Nieto said that the disaster will unfold sequentially, as the mass of river water makes its way downstream.

“This will not occur all at the same time,” Nieto said. “This is a slow moving event. The river crests at different times.”

Many residents along the river, especially those with children, already have heeded the evacuation order and left, said Danielle Parker, who lives in the Spreckels community. She and her husband moved their valuables to a friend’s place on higher ground in Salinas. But they and their Great Dane Harileigh weren’t leaving their Spreckels home, where the living quarters are raised above ground level to withstand flooding, with only the garage below exposed.

“We’re hunkering down,” said Parker, 35, whose home is about a mile from the river. “Everyone’s just kind of hanging out watching each others’ stuff for the friends and neighbors who left town.”

The die-hards staying put were planning a party at a community park in the afternoon, Parker said.

“Everyone’s bringing food and drinks, we’ll have music playing,” Parker said. “If it does flood as bad as it might, we’ll have some socialization before we’re all stuck in our houses.”

The nearby Monterey Zoo, and a bed and breakfast and a horse boarding stable were continuing their usual operations. Janine Garcia at the zoo said that “the potential for actually cresting to the point of impacting us is very unlikely — maybe the roads into or out of this area, but the zoo itself will not be impacted.”

Connections Boarding Stable owner Sheryl Fudge said that “if they close the access, we’re all prepared — we have plenty of food on hand, so we should be fine.”

The NWS predicted at least a chance of rain each day and night through Jan. 18, though heavy wind gusts seen in recent days may not materialize. Residents should still be wary, as heavily saturated soils could still leave a window of opportunity for strong gusts to bring trees down and cause damage.

The Bay Area was still assessing and cleaning up severe weather-related damage Thursday from earlier storms. A new sinkhole that opened around 3 a.m. Thursday forced the closure of Highway 92 in both directions from upper Highway 35 to Pilarcitos Creek Road.

At Monterey Bay Kayaks in Monterey, Adam Helm said it’s the slow season and they weren’t too worried about the drop in business. He said employees who work at the Monterey site could work at another location up the coast if road access is cut off.

“For what we’ve been through over the past few years with COVID, fires, this is pretty minimal,” Helm said.

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.