Caltech's Day Of Mind Games, Amusements And Crossbows

The "Press Party" panel takes aim this week at the White House's failed attempts to rein in media scrutiny of the IRS scandal and Lt. Gov. Tim Murray's abrupt exit from office. Also, are reporters risking their lives covering stories and the worst media blunder of the week - a CNN reporter's embarrassing gaffe. Take a look and leave a comment below and take the poll at right:

The University of Akron has finalized the sale of the Rubber Bowl, and the new owner is poised to begin gutting the facility for its new life.Sean Mason, president of Team 1 Marketing, said the company will invest as much as $35 million to remake the bowl for what he hopes will be a U.S. Football League franchise.“It will go down to a shell — seats, everything,” Mason said Thursday. “Everything will be new and updated.”The Canton company paid $38,000 for the bowl that covers 6.8 acres next to the home of the All-American Soap Box Derby and Akron-Fulton International Airport in southeast Akron.The nearly 73-year-old bowl first was owned by the city, then UA. The university used it for football games until it opened the on-campus InfoCision Stadium in 2009.Mason hopes the bowl’s new incarnation will include a dome, for which he’s waiting on lender approval. If the dome isn’t funded, the construction price will drop to $16 million to $18 million.Mason also said the company has approached the city of Akron about buying 5 to 10 acres of city land for parking. Mason said Team 1 wants to pave enough land for 5,000 to 8,000 parking spaces.Team 1 continues to be interested in the nearby John W. Heisman Lodge, a 14,000-square-foot building with stone fireplaces the university has used for pregame receptions. UA still owns the lodge, and the city has the first right of refusal on a sale, Mason said.If all goes as Team 1 hopes, the bowl will be home to a U.S. Football League franchise called the Akron Fire in spring 2014. The Akron team would be one of eight teams in the fledgling league.The facility no longer will be known as the Rubber Bowl, as Team 1 doesn’t own that name. So the company will be selling naming rights, Mason said.“We’re hoping that we’ll get a local company, but right now it looks like it will be out of state,” he said.Carol Biliczky can be reached at cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3729.

Marion High School on August 30, 1999 (The Gazette) Visitors to the office and commercial housing section of Cedar Rapids’ craigslist Thursday viewed a peculiar listing: rent or lease Marion High School for only $100, though the post noted that “almost any reasonable offer will be accepted at this point.”“That would be known as the senior prank,” said Sarah Pinion, superintendent of the Marion Independent School District, who noted that the school is not actually available for acquisition.The post touts the school’s “state of the art fitness center” but also mentions “a few minor leaks” in the roof and a few other building issues.Pinion found out about the impractical joke Thursday afternoon and took it in stride, maintaining a glass-half-full outlook.“I’m just really pleased that (the writer) had good spelling and punctuation and really reflect well on their writing ability for the district,” the superintendent said, laughing. “I think our seniors should be commended for saying goodbye to the district and thanks for our time here and be relatively creative … When we look at the large scheme of things, this was relatively harmless.”Pinion said administrators had an idea of who is behind the post but she wasn’t ready to say whether the involved student(s) would be punished or how.“We’re still doing a little bit of investigating,” she said.To her knowledge, the district did not receive any bids from perspective renters, though she noted that there would be a great deal of issues involved with transferring occupancy of the building. In addition, she noted the cheap cost would likely not offset the high utility prices.The post can be viewed here.

Michael KlunderThe ex-wife of Michael Klunder, who kidnapped Kathlynn Shepard, asked the court for a permanent order to protect her and her family from Klunder about two months after he was released from prison, according to documents filed in 2011.Klunder, 42, of Stratford, a registered sex offender who had a criminal history of kidnapping a 21-year-old woman and kidnapping two 3-year old girls, assault, sexual assault and attempted burglary, also was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, according to court documents filed in Cerro Gordo County District Court.Klunder, who killed himself Monday, is accused of kidnapping Shepard and a 12-year-old girl Monday in Dayton. The 12-year-old escaped but Shepard hasn’t been found.Klunder in the documents acknowledged his violent history and criminal offenses but said they were all in the past and didn’t “reflect” who he after being released from prison in February 2011. He participated in a faith-based 18 month treatment program while in prison and successfully completed it. Klunder denied physically harming his ex-wife but admitted to being addicted to cocaine and having a violent temper.Klunder said he never grabbed his ex-wife by her throat or threw her around the room, as she alleged, according to documents. He admitted there was a no-contact order placed on him while he was in prison but his ex-wife only did that because she told him she had to cut off contact with him or her boyfriend would leave her and take their two daughters.He also denied causing any “intentional” sexual trauma to his ex-wife, according to documents. Klunder denied making any contact with his ex-wife during the past 11 years and didn’t contact his son before he turned 18.His ex-wife claimed Klunder threatened her in September 2010, when he threatened to come and take their son, according to documents.Also in the court documents, there are filings from Klunder who was attempting to establish his paternity rights and visitations with his son. The court denied his petition in 2005, saying it was in the best interest of the child and awarded sole custody to the boy’s mother.

City officials in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City aren’t happy that years of talk in the Iowa Legislature about property-tax relief for commercial and industrial property owners ended Thursday with a new law that they say will cost their cities dearly.The part of the new law that is particularly unnerving, city officials said on Thursday, is what they say is the less-noticed part: the new law’s provision that changes the property classification for apartments, nursing homes and manufactured home parks from commercial to residential gradually over a decade.Local jurisdictions now tax commercial property at 100 percent of value and residential at about half that much as dictated by a state property-tax formula.The new law makes no provision to use state funds to make up or “backfill” the revenue lost to local jurisdictions due to this change for “multi-residential” properties, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett and Geoff Fruin, assistant to the city manager for the city of Iowa City, said.“We’re very disappointed they didn’t backfill this part of the law,” Corbett said.Casey Drew, the city of Cedar Rapids’ finance director, estimated on Thursday that city of Cedar Rapids could see a reduction of $10 million a year in property-tax revenue by 2024 because of the provisions in the new state law that come without state funds to backfill the losses. The city now takes in about $99 million a year in property-tax revenue, Drew said.Iowa City’s Fruin said the city of Iowa City could face an estimated $7.7 million annual loss in property-tax revenue without state backfill support by 2024. Iowa City currently takes in about $57 million a year in revenue from property taxes, he said.The “multi-residential” provision of the new law does not take effect until the budget year that begins on July 1, 2015, and so Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz on Thursday said the city will have some time to figure out how it will adjust and respond.Corbett said Cedar Rapids city officials will push state lawmakers next year to fix the problem before the city looks at job eliminations and service cutbacks.The loss of property-tax revenue from apartments, Fruin said, hits university towns such as Iowa City particularly hard because of the number of rental units in the community to support the student population. Corbett said Cedar Rapids has plenty of apartments, too.Cities in Iowa use local-option sales taxes and franchise fees as two ways to raise revenue other than property taxes. Most cities in Iowa have a 1-percent local-option sales tax in place well into the future, but Iowa City’s 1-percent tax expires on June 30 while the city of Cedar Rapids’ expires on June 30, 2014.Iowa City currently has a 1-percent franchise on electric and gas bills while the city of Cedar Rapids is about to raise its franchise fee from 1 percent to 2 percent.The dissatisfaction Thursday from local officials is a bit of a surprise because lawmakers and Branstad have talked a lot about passing a law that uses state funds to make up for lost property-tax revenue to local jurisdictions.But the backfill provision comes for just the most talked about part of the new law, which reduces the percentage of commercial and industrial property subject to property tax from the current 100 percent of value to 95 percent of value and then 90 percent of value by the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2015.However, even the backfill funds for this provision come with only a hope that state lawmakers down the road would honor the current commitment, Corbett and Fruin noted.