Gazette Daily News Briefing, April 24
This is John McGlothlen with The Gazette digital news desk and I'm here with your update for Monday, April 24th.
According to the National Weather Service, there will be widespread frost before 9 a.m. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 55. Then tonight, a 50 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch are possible.
After waiting 52 years to hire its first female president in 2018, Kirkwood Community College last week introduced three women as finalists to succeed Lori Sundberg when she retires later this year. The first of her prospective successors to visit Kirkwood last week was Lisa Armour, who’s spent her entire higher education career in Florida and currently serves as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs of Sante Fe College — an 18,000-student public community college in Gainesville. The last to visit was Lori Suddick, who’s served institutions across the Midwest, holding various leadership posts at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay before stepping in as president in 2018 atop College of Lake County, a public community college in Grayslake, Ill. The second finalist introduced to campus — or reintroduced, more accurately — was Kristie Fisher, who early in her higher ed pursuits earned an associate degree from Kirkwood before later serving as Kirkwood’s vice president of student services from 2006 to 2014. Since the finalist visits and on-campus interviews last week, the 15-member Kirkwood presidential search committee has been collecting input from faculty, staff and the broader community through online feedback forms. A proposed schedule of presidential-search activities doesn’t identify a date for presidential selection. It does project an appointment date of Oct. 30.
The Iowa Utilities Board issued separate orders Friday assessing $2 million in civil penalties to two pipeline companies that have been operating hazardous liquid pipelines and underground storage facilities in the state for nearly three decades without obtaining permits from the Iowa Utilities Board. The board began a review last year of hazardous liquid pipelines and renewals of expiring permits, discovering Enterprise Products Operating did not have a current permit for approximately 750 miles of pipelines in Iowa that transport propane, butane and natural gasoline, according to a news release. It also found Sinclair Transportation Co. did not have a permit for a roughly 12-mile pipeline in Lee County that transports petroleum products, according to Iowa Utilities Board records. Neither company had been issued permits required to construct, maintain or operate a hazardous liquid pipeline in Iowa, the utilities board said in its release. The utilities board issued a total of $1.8 million in civil penalties against Enterprise for not obtaining permits for seven hazardous liquid pipelines and two hazardous liquid underground storage facilities. It issued a $200,000 civil penalty against Sinclair for operating its hazardous liquid pipeline without a permit.
A body that authorities believe to be that of Cristian Martinez — a 20-year-old Muscatine man reported missing a week ago — was recovered Saturday from the Iowa River, more than a mile downstream from where he was last seen. Iowa City police said they responded shortly after noon to Napoleon Park, at 2501 S. Gilbert St., on the east bank of the river. Authorities said a couple reported what they thought was a body in the river. The city said in a news release that the Johnson County Medical Examiner's Office would positively identify the individual found and determine the cause and manner of death. Martinez had gone to Iowa City with some friends who last saw him in the alley behind Bardot Iowa, a bar at 347 S. Gilbert St., sometime before 1 a.m. April 15. His phone had died earlier in the evening, according to the Iowa City Police Department.
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🎹 Podcast music: “Journey” by Emily McGlothlen
