Gazette Daily News Podcast, October 20

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This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, October 20.

It should be another nice fall day Wednesday, with a chance for some rain in the afternoon and evening. For the most part the National Weather Service is predicting mostly sunny skies in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 71 degrees. Rain looks to be most likely between noon and 6 p.m. The low is predicted to be 48 degrees with mostly cloudy skies.

Federal agents conducted a search in New Sharon on Tuesday in a firearms investigation, but the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation assisted in case there was a connection to the Xavior Harrelson death investigation.

The search warrant was obtained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for a property in New Sharon in connection with a firearms violation case. The DCI indicated they participated in the search due to the proximity to where Harrelson went missing, but this is particularly curious because investigators have not released the cause of death, yet.

Last Friday, nearly five months after the 11-year-old Harrelson was reported missing from a Montezuma mobile home park where he lived with his mother, authorities confirmed that human remains found in a nearby farm field were of the boy.

The drama surrounding hospitals potentially being built in North Liberty continues. A Johnson County surgical group is posturing to sue member surgeons associated with Steindler Orthopedic Clinic, accusing them of violating a no-compete agreement by seeking state permission to build a new surgery center in what could become a new medical hub in North Liberty.

Johnson County Surgical Investors made its threat — and other arguments — in a letter urging the State Health Facilities Council to deny Steindler a “certificate of need” to build a $17.9 million ambulatory surgery center on 36 acres near the Interstate 380 interchange with Forevergreen Road.

Johnson County Surgical Investors and Iowa City Ambulatory Surgical Center — a 13-year-old multi-specialty center jointly owned by the Johnson County group and Mercy Hospital in Iowa City — argue the Steindler development in North Liberty is not only unnecessary but unlawful. Their arguments are tied, largely, to a relationship between Steindler and the Iowa City surgical center giving 13 Steindler physicians “active medical staff privileges” at the center — located just a half mile from where Steindler is now in Iowa City.

According to the letter, because those 13 are physicians and owners of both Steindler and Johnson County Surgical Investors, they signed agreements not to own, operate, manage, finance, lease or invest in any other ambulatory surgical center in Johnson County.

According to reporting in the Washington Post, Iowa authorities are investigating multiple threats — including one of lynching — that Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Ross Wilburn received soon after writing an op-ed earlier this month critical of former President Donald Trump.

Wilburn wrote the opinion piece published in the Des Moines Register ahead of Trump's Oct. 9 rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. In it Wilburn accused Iowa Republicans of putting their loyalty to Trump ahead of Iowans' needs.

Wilburn received two phone messages from a restricted number, and one left in his Legislature email's inbox. Only the first voicemail included a violent threat of lynching, but all three included explicit and racist language Wilburn said that while it is difficult to identify people in these cases, he intends to press charges if they are found.

Iowa’s Republican Senators both condemned the messages.