Berkeley’s 66-year-old ice-skating rink is up for sale, but some fear it will close before new operators take it on. -more-

Nearly a quarter of a million residents went hungry in Alameda County last year, a new report said. -more-

Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto makes its African-American staff work in the back of its Fourth Street restaurant, away from most customers, according to the complaint in a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco law offices of Angela Alioto. -more-

One of the attorneys the Albany City Council hired to handle talks with a controversial Southern California developer over a project at Golden Gate Fields may have represented the developer on a similar project. -more-

The controversy over the removal of Oakland medical professional Gwen Sykes from the Alameda County Medical Center Board of Trustees descended into confusion this week. -more-

A staple of daily newspaper journalism is an “expose” of the salaries paid to public servants of all kinds. The Contra Costa Times has been dining out for more than a year on salary information it obtained about Oakland employees who make more than $100,000 per year, gleaned from a successful California Public Records Act lawsuit against the city. Oakland’s unions, particularly the police union, fought tooth and nail to keep said information from coming out into the open. Lately, the San Francisco Chronicle has been engaged in a similar struggle to reveal information about compensation packages for top University of California officials, and the results have caught the attention of the state Legislature—both parties—in a big way. Putting such details in the public arena is laudable, and readers are certainly shocked to see it, but in some ways these stories miss their mark. -more-