Gazette Daily News Briefing, February 12
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, February 12.
Friday’s weather may end up being the coldest in an already frigid week. Also, there could be a significant amount of new snow. The one piece of good news? It is going to get warmer next week, so hang in there.
According to the National Weather Service, the high on Friday will be 0 degrees. Wind chill values will continue to be in the negatives, with wind speeds of 10 to 15 mph gusting as high as 20 mph. On Friday morning into the afternoon hours, the light snow from the night before could continue, with a half inch of snow accumulation or less predicted. On Friday night, with a low of around -4 degrees, the real snow will arrive, with overnight accumulation of up to 3 inches possible. Please plan accordingly, as travel will only become more difficult as the day goes on, and the conditions outside will be lethal with extended exposure.
I’ll leave you with a positive thought: multiple 10-day forecast models I have looked at indicate it will be at least 30 degrees warmer in just a week’s time.
One day after an Iowa House education committee advanced a bill to eliminate tenure at Iowa’s public universities, an Iowa Senate subcommittee did the same — questioning the authenticity of tenure review and linking tenure with concerns about the suppression of conservative views politicization in higher education.
Whatever flaws the tenure system may have, Republican lawmakers made clear in their remarks that the main thing they are trying to fight for is right for conservative ideas, and conservative people, to flourish on campus. Democrats, and lobbyists for the universities, argued that eliminating tenure would hurt the ability of universities to attract professors, particularly in research fields. Both the University of Iowa and Iowa State University are research universities.
Whether this is just posturing to threaten universities against suppressing conservative ideas, or if it is actual legislation that Republicans want to pass, will be determined when the vote comes before the whole bodies in the Senate and House.
A huge part of the University of Iowa’s research mission is its research hospital, but several hospitals on Thursday objected to a plan for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to expand its footprint into North Liberty. The reason, in this case, is not strictly ideological. Mercy Hospital in Iowa City argued that the $230 million expansion proposal was using public funds to expand for commercial, rather than academic purposes, and area hospitals will be forced to compete. UIHC administrators, plus other small hospitals, argued that the mammoth research hospital needs to get even bigger because it takes referrals from all 99 counties, and increasing its capacity increases its capacity to help Iowans all over the state. UIHC administrators also told that the construction of the project will not use taxpayer dollars.
The State Health Facilities Board — the government body that oversees the regulatory Certificate of Need process required to move forward with a development of this scale — is expected to review UIHC’s application Wednesday. The goal of the process is to help prevent duplication of expensive medical services and to keep overall health care costs down.
Although Eastern Iowa is sitting under a layer of snow ranging from 8 to 20 inches — well above normal — that doesn’t necessarily translate to flood risks.
The risk of flooding on the Cedar and Iowa rivers this spring is at or below normal, according to the National Weather Service’s first prediction of the season.
The Cedar River at Cedar Rapids has a 5 percent likelihood of reaching major flood stage of 16 feet this spring, compared with the 7 percent historical average, the service reported Thursday. The risks of the river reaching minor or moderate flood stages also are below normal.
The Iowa River at Iowa City historically has a less than 5 percent chance of reaching its major flood stage of 26 feet, and that’s the predicted risk for this spring so far. The likelihood of minor flooding in Iowa City this spring is on par with historical risks.
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