Gazette Daily News Podcast, May 26
This is Nathan Ford from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, May 26.
It’s looking like a sunny day in Cedar Rapids, with a high temperature of 79 according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts could reach 20 miles per hour.
The attorney for Cristhian Bahena Rivera began to lay out his defense Tuesday, saying he’s a hardworking, family-centered immigrant from Mexico who was pressured into making a false confession. Bahena Rivera is on trial for the 2018 stabbing death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
Lawyer Jennifer Frese told jurors in her opening statement that their hearts should break for Tibbetts, but that authorities conducted an incomplete investigation into her death and were too quick to close the case.
Bahena Rivera’s lawyers also kept working to raise suspicions about Tibbetts' boyfriend, Dalton Jack, who testified again Tuesday about their up-and-down relationship. Police say they cleared Jack as a suspect after establishing he was out of town for work when Tibbetts went missing while she was out for a run in her hometown of Brooklyn.
Investigators said Bahena Rivera confessed during an 11-hour interrogation to approaching Tibbetts, fighting with her after she threatened to call the police, putting her body in his trunk and hiding it in a cornfield. They say he led them to the body, which was badly decomposed and hidden underneath cornstalks.
The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday in Davenport.
Nearly four years after the University of Iowa announced plans to raze its nearly 60-year-old University Athletic Club and replace it with a hotel, administrators are seeking approval of a different deal. It would erect an age 55-and-up apartment complex on the university campus near Finkbine Golf Course.
The university would have no financial stake in the four-story, 110-unit rental project to be built by private developers. That’s according to its request for approval from the Board of Regents, which is scheduled to consider it next week.
To kick-start the project, the UI is seeking permission to enter into a 30-year ground lease allowing Melrose Partners LP to develop 6.12 acres just southeast of Finkbine.
As part of the lease, the UI would get rent of $130,000 a year, escalating 10 percent every five years, according to board documents.
A year since George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police prompted calls for reform across the United States, Cedar Rapids City Council members shared their hopes Tuesday that a newly adopted citizens’ police review board will build bridges between the community and law enforcement to make the city safer and more equitable.
As the application deadline of this Monday nears for people to apply for one of nine spots on the oversight board, council members participated in a training session to gain a deeper understanding of how these panels operate across the nation and to envision the impact this board could have.
Common threads emerged as the council members shared what they hoped the board would accomplish: increase transparency, promote trust and relationship-building, open dialogue and improve safety.
The Iowa Ideas 2021 virtual conference will be here before you know it, and we would like you to be our guest on the house. The Gazette is providing free access to this two-day gathering with more than 50 sessions — filled with thought-provoking local, and national speakers — all ready to engage you on a variety of important and timely Iowa issues. Join us Oct. 14 and 15 for this can’t miss, idea-exchange experience. Learn more and register for the event at iowaideas.com.
