Des Moines business maven Michael Gartner’s appointment to the Board of Regents seems natural — the Iowa Cubs owner and former NBC News president is an accomplished Iowan and one of the state’s most visible and respected residents.

We’re just a bit puzzled, though.

Gartner is replacing David Neil, who resigned because of his conflict of interest in the regents’ contract dealings with Wellmark Inc. Neil resigned from the Wellmark board of directors in December, yet still felt compelled to excuse himself from the regents because of the controversy between the state and the company.

Gartner was editor of The (Ames) Tribune in 1997 when its parent company, Partnership Press, sued Iowa State over its policy for distributing publications. (Full disclosure: He sued the Daily too, but that’s irrelevant.)

Neil’s history made him ineligible to serve. What does it say for Gartner’s service that he has this litigious — read: contentious — past with a regent institution?

We ask the state Senate to sort all this out satisfactorily when it holds hearings to confirm Gartner.