Gazette Daily News Podcast, August 31

It will be sunny again Wednesday, with the temperatures rising as well. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny with a high near 89 degrees on Wednesday. On Wednesday night it will be mostly clear, with a low of around 61 degrees.

University of Iowa Health Care on Tuesday got state approval to continue building a massive 469,000-square-foot hospital campus in North Liberty as planned — despite a more than 33 percent cost overrun, bringing the total project budget to more than half a billion dollars.

The State Health Facilities Council voted 3-1 during a Tuesday morning meeting to allow the project to continue with a revised $307.1 million budget. In total, UIHC reported inflation has driven up the budget for its full North Liberty project — which includes an academic, research, and clinic building — to more than $525.6 million, an increase the Board of Regents approved in July.

State Health Facilities Council Chairman Harold Miller on Tuesday was the only member of the four-person group to vote against the UIHC budget hike — voicing disappointment the university didn’t better anticipate and budget for inflation, which started its steep ascent between UIHC’s first denied application and its second approved revised version.

A Marion man convicted of killing Chris Bagley in 2018 was charged Tuesday in the jail assault of an informant who he attacked in May in an attempt to stop him from testifying against a drug dealer.

Johnny Blahnik Church, 35, formerly known as Drew Blahnik, during an initial appearance, was charged with willful injury resulting in serious injury, a felony. He was also charged with tampering with a witness, an aggravated misdemeanor.

Blahnik Church remains in jail after being sentenced to 57 years for fatally stabbing Bagley, 31, of Walker, in December 2018. This stabbing was related to Bagley robbing another local drug dealer named Andrew Shaw.

According to a criminal complaint about the drug informant assault, Blahnik Church, along with Gregory Sills, 49, of Oelwein, followed Ethan Palmer, the drug informant, into the bathroom in their cell pod at the Linn County Jail on May 27, and began “striking” Palmer. They eventually dragged Palmer out into the main area of the cellblock and continued to attack him.

Palmer’s wife, Laurie Palmer, told The Gazette earlier this month about the attack on her husband. Law enforcement and court documents from a federal conviction of the drug dealer, Justin Michael Buehler, 39, who Palmer testified against, confirmed the assault.

Buehler was convicted in U.S. District Court in June on two counts of distributing methamphetamine.

Cedar County residents crowded the Tipton High School auditorium Monday night for an informational meeting about a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline that would slice through eastern Iowa.

It was the second of six scheduled meetings in Eastern Iowa, where ADM and Wolf’s proposed 280-mile carbon dioxide pipeline will stretch from Cedar Rapids into Illinois. During the 3 1/2-hour meeting, attendees posed questions about safety, conflicts of interest on the Iowa Utilities Board and a supposed lack of compliance with required meeting notifications for impacted residents. Wolf representatives also spoke about eminent domain and said they intend not to use it when constructing the pipeline.

After Linn County, Cedar County is the second county the proposed pipeline would pass through on its way to Illinois. Wolf estimates around 26 miles of the pipeline would pass through Cedar County, with 90 total miles being constructed through Iowa.

Companies that sequester carbon are eligible for federal tax credits of up to $50 per metric ton. By reducing the carbon footprint of ethanol production, these companies hope to make the fuel more competitive in states, like California, with low carbon fuel standards.