After three months of relatively smooth sailing, the UC Hotel Task Force struck a reef Wednesday night after Chairperson Rob Wrenn presented the 25-member panel’s final report to the full Planning Commission. With the backing of Commission Chairperson Harry Pollack, Planning Commissioner Jerome Wiggins, who is African-American, blasted the task force as a “hand-picked, non-diverse group of white people” and said that he “couldn’t care less” if it continued. -more-

Anwar Zadran is used to not seeing his wife and four children. When he leaves for work, they are still asleep. Often when he gets home, they are already in bed. That’s because Zadran has to spend 10-16 hours a day driving a Berkeley cab in order to make enough money to support his family. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series on taxation issues between the City of Berkeley and the University of California. In the May 11 edition, we compared the Berkeley/UC tax relationship with similar relationships in other university cities around the country. -more-

FRIDAY, MAY 14 -more-

At a time when city government officials are scrambling around for money to close a continuing budget deficit, Berkeley City Council’s resident research scientist—Councilmember Gordon Wozniak—says he has looked into the budgetary returns on the city’s 23 parking enforcement officers and come to a conclusion: spend more time on meter enforcement and less time patrolling unmetered zones. -more-

Over the past three months we have received and printed many letters from correspondents with a variety of points of view on the Israel-Palestine situation. We’ve received letters from people who describe themselves as Jewish, both by heritage and by rel igion, criticizing the actions of the government of Israel. We’ve gotten letters from people describing themselves as having such backgrounds which defended the government of Israel. We’ve had letters from people who make no reference to their religious b ackground which were both pro and con the Israeli government. We’ve printed letters attacking the actions of the Palestinian insurgents, and letters defending them. -more-