Community Briefs

Talks between writers, producers break down

Contract negotiations between Hollywood writers and producers
broke off Thursday, renewing the possibility of an
industry-crippling walkout this spring.

The talks that began Jan. 22 ended when the Writers Guild of
America walked away from the table, according to the Alliance of
Motion Picture & Television Producers.

“I think both sides worked very hard to bridge the gap
between them,” the alliance’s president, Nick Counter,
told a news conference. “But we’re so far apart on the
economics that there’s no way to bridge the gap.”

Producers said they were offering a compensation package that
would give writers a net gain of $30 million over a three-year
period, which represents an 11 percent increase.

They said the WGA’s demands represented an
“unrealistic” $112 million economic package and a
nearly 40 percent increase.

John Wells, president of the western WGA (and executive producer
of “ER” and “The West Wing”), disputed
those figures.

Writers earned a total of about $1.2 billion in 2000 and are
demanding a $99.7 million increase over three years, amounting to
an average annual raise of about 3 percent, Wells told a press
conference.

Senate votes down graduation test bill

The Senate rejected an emergency bill Thursday that would make
Gov. Gray Davis’ high school graduation test that ninth-grade
students will start taking voluntarily next week only a practice
test.

The 1999 law that created the test says high school freshmen who
did well on next week’s test will have completed their
requirement and won’t have to take the test again.

Ninth-graders around the state who volunteer will take the
reading and writing portion of the new test March 7 and the math
section March 13. All 10th-graders must take the test a year from
now.

The class of 2004, today’s ninth-graders, are the first to
face the new requirement to pass the tough test to graduate.

The Senate action, a party-line vote with Democrats favoring the
bill and Republicans rejecting it, leaves the test’s status
in confusion.

All school districts must offer it to their ninth-graders, but
school officials can’t tell students if the test will count
or be only a practice test.

The bill was passed 66-0 in the Assembly but lost 20-12 in the
Senate in a dispute that turned partisan.

Emotional gathering to remember students

Tears flowed freely Thursday as hundreds of people gathered in
Santa Barbara to remember four young people run over and killed
last week by a car allegedly driven by a troubled college
freshman.

Family members and close friends were among those who gathered
at UC Santa Barbara’s Storke Plaza to remember Elie Israel,
Nicholas Shaw Bourdakis, Christopher Edward Divis and Ruth Dasha
Gold Levy.

Heads were down low, loved ones hugged each other and tears ran
freely as the four victims were remembered.

Afterward, many in the crowd took part in a procession to
neighboring Isla Vista’s Acorn Park, not far from the site of
Friday night’s tragedy.

Israel, 27, and Bourdakis, Levy and Divis, each 20, died near
the park when a car racing down an Isla Vista street plowed into
them and a number of parked vehicles.

Levy’s 27-year-old brother, Albert, was also hit. He was
listed in critical condition at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on
Thursday.

Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports.