Gazette Daily News Briefing, June 7
This Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, June 7.
The remnants of Tuesday's clouds will hang around for a while, before giving way to sun. According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly cloudy in the Cedar Rapids area before gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 81 degrees. On Wednesday night it will be partly cloudy, with a low of around 52 degrees.
Continuing its construction boom involving more than $1 billion in new and renovated facilities, University of Iowa Health Care next week will seek Board of Regents approval to spend $249 million on a new 263,000-square-foot “Health Sciences Academic Building.”
The new six-story academic facility — realizing another item on UIHC’s “10-year modernization plan” unveiled last year — will house a trio of nationally-esteemed departments central the UI health campus: Communication Sciences and Disorders; Health and Human Physiology; and Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science.
The west side project — planned behind Slater Residence Hall — will encourage cross-department collaboration while also expanding the UI inventory of “modern general assignment classrooms,” according to regent documents.
A judge has sentenced a former Iowa State University football player, convicted of assaulting former University of Iowa basketball player Jordan Bohannon outside a downtown bar in 2021, to one year of probation and granted him a deferred judgment.
Nicholas Kron, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., pleaded in March to assault causing bodily injury, a serious misdemeanor. He admitted to assaulting Bohannon outside of DC’s Bar in Iowa City on May 23, 2021.
According to a criminal complaint, Bohannon and Kron were both at the bar and, after it closed, Bohannon and another person got into an argument outside. Kron punched Bohannon three times in the head, knocking him to the ground. Bohannon had a cut on his head from the assault. Bohannon's friends helped him leave but later he was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Bohannon filed a lawsuit against Kron for the assault in July 2021, but it was dismissed in January 2022 without prejudice by the court for failing to serve Kron with the suit in a timely manner. A new lawsuit was filed last month against Kron for “brutally, unlawfully and intentionally” assaulting Bohannon.
The Clear Creek Amana Community School District is breaking ground Thursday on a new elementary school to be built in Coralville.
The public is invited to the groundbreaking at 4 p.m. Thursday. The school will sit on 30 acres of land west of Coral Ridge Avenue and east of the intersection of Interstate 380 and Highway 6 in Coralville.
A name has not yet been chosen for the new elementary school and the naming process has not yet been laid out by the school board.
This will be the fourth elementary school to be constructed in the Clear Creek Amana district and will alleviate overcrowding in its other schools. It also will be the district’s largest elementary with a capacity for 600 students.
With Tiffin, North Liberty and Coralville recognized as three of the fastest-growing cities in Iowa, the Clear Creek Amana district estimates growing enrollment of 150 to 200 students per year, and the 10-year enrollment outlook estimates 300 to 350 students per grade level.
