November 15, 1986

The main pricing committee of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries recommended tonight that the group raise prices by $3 a barrel, to $18, and return to setting fixed rates for petroleum. There was no official recommendation on what has been considered the critical issue of how to restrict production to get prices to rise. But the three oil ministers meeting here, from Kuwait, Ecuador and Libya, urged that a quota system, restricting output country by country, be continued. They said there was wide agreement within OPEC for such a system, as evidenced in communications sent by members not present.

New York City police and union negotiators began a new round of confidential talks yesterday aimed at resolving their dispute over Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward's plan to rotate patrol officers among precincts. Police officials said it was unclear when, or whether, a compromise might be reached. At the same time, the police released statistics indicating that a six-day slowdown by officers protesting the plan had resulted in a 47 percent drop in arrests, compared with the same period last year, and an 89 percent drop in traffic tickets. The figures showed that felony arrests fell 32 percent, while misdemeanor arrests fell 61 percent. The number of officers reporting sick rose 15 percent from last year but fell 6 percent from the previous week.

In California, where civic boosterism and unbounded community expansion have been pursued with a kind of religious fervor since the Gold Rush, citizens are increasingly forcing a limit on urban growth. Capping a decade in which scores of smaller cities have acted to restrict growth, residents of San Francisco and Los Angeles last week approved sweeping voter-initiated referendums to limit construction of new office towers, hotels, shopping centers and other buildings. ''This is the dawn of a new era in Los Angeles politics and land use planning,'' said Marvin Braude, who, with a fellow City Councilman, Zev Yaraslovsky, drafted the measure on growth control in that city. ''People no longer want the destiny of the city determined by large developers and their lobbyists.''

President Reagan today signed a comprehensive health bill designed to promote exports of prescription drugs and to compensate children injured by vaccines. Mr. Reagan said he had approved the bill ''with mixed feelings'' because he had ''serious reservations'' about the vaccine compensation program. But he warmly endorsed provisions of the bill that would, for the first time, allow pharmaceutical companies to export drugs to other countries that have approved their use, without waiting for the United States to approve the drugs' sale here. Mr. Reagan said this part of the new law ''will increase the competitiveness of the American pharmaceutical industry abroad, create jobs, foster biotechnology and aid other nations.'' Separation-of-Powers Issue However, he said there were ''substantial deficiencies'' in the vaccine plan, under which injured people could obtain payments from the Government without proving fault or wrongdoing by the vaccine manufacturer or anyone else.

The University of Notre Dame today named as its 16th president the Rev. Edward A. Malloy, a specialist in ethics who is a former basketball player for the Fighting Irish. In May the 45-year-old priest, who is currently the university's associate provost, will succeed the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, who has been Notre Dame's president for the last 35 years, longer than anyone ever held that office. ''I am overwhelmed,'' Father Malloy told the university's board of trustees upon receiving official word of his election after lunch today. Hesburgh Plans to Travel ''I am overjoyed,'' said Father Hesburgh, who is 69 and will spend a year traveling before returning to the university as an adviser, or what he today called ''a designated hitter.''