Southern Middle TN Today News with Tom Price 12-11-25

WKOM/WKRM Radio

Southern Middle Tennessee Today

News Copy for December 11, 2025

All news stories are aggregated from various sources and modified for time and content. Original sources are cited.

We start with local news…

CFR Launches Safety Platform (Press Release)

Columbia Fire & Rescue announces the implementation of Community Connect, an innovative resident engagement platform designed to improve emergency response outcomes through voluntary information sharing. This initiative represents a significant advancement in community-centered emergency preparedness.

Community Connect enables residents to securely share household information that assists first responders during emergency situations. The voluntary platform allows families to provide details about special needs residents, pets, property access, and emergency contacts—information that can be crucial during time-sensitive emergency responses.

"Emergency response effectiveness often depends on information we don't have when we're dispatched," said Chris Cummins, Columbia Fire Chief. "Community Connect bridges that information gap by allowing residents to share what they believe would help us serve them better during emergencies."

The platform employs advanced security protocols to protect resident data, with information accessible only to authorized emergency personnel during active responses. Participation is entirely voluntary, with residents maintaining control over what information they choose to share.

Columbia joins a growing network of communities utilizing Community Connect technology to strengthen the connection between residents and emergency services. The department plans to gather resident feedback and continuously improve the service based on community needs.

Sign Up Today:

https://www.communityconnect.io/info/tn-columbiafirerescue

Columbia Urological Associates Join MRMC (MSM)

The team of Columbia Urological Associates has joined Maury Regional Medical Group (MRMG) to create MRMG Urological Associates. This strategic partnership delivers the high-quality urological care patients rely on, now enhanced by the strength and support of the entire Maury Regional Health system.

The new practice, now named MRMG Urological Associates, includes John W. Coursey, MD and Anthony D. Khim, MD, who specialize in treating conditions and disorders of the urological system. They are joined by Andrea VanFleet, Certified Urology Nurse Practitioner .

“We are thrilled to welcome the Urological Associates team to Maury Regional Medical Group,” MRMG President Nathan Miller said. “Patients can rest assured that they’ll continue to receive the same level of care from the team they know and respect.”

The specialists at MRMG Urological Associates treat a wide array of conditions, including but not limited to, kidney stones, incontinence, bed wetting, low testosterone, male fertility, urological cancers (bladder, kidney, penis, prostate, testicular and urethral), prostate disorders (cancer, enlargement and abnormal PSA), neurological bladder problems, complicated urinary tract infections and slow, frequent, urgent or nighttime urination.

MRMG Urological Associates is equipped to treat both routine and complex urological conditions using a combination of state-of-the-art surgical and diagnostic tools. The practice offers advanced kidney stone management, including Shockwave Lithotripsy and endoscopic surgical management.

The team also performs general surgical procedures, such as prostate surgery, hydrocele repair, spermatocele excision, vasectomy and circumcision, while often utilizing robotic surgery for minimally invasive outcomes.

For voiding dysfunction and incontinence, specialized interventions include AXONICS® Sacral Neuromodulation and injectable treatments like Botox, Bulkamid and Macroplastique. Comprehensive diagnostic services include cystoscopy, urodynamic studies, uroflow studies, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, urinalysis and X-rays of the kidney, ureter and bladder (KUB).

In addition to providing services at MRMG Urological Associates in Columbia, the care team also welcomes patients at specialty clinic locations in Lawrenceburg, Lewisburg, Pulaski and Waynesboro.

MRMG Urological Associates is located at 101 Berrywood Drive in Columbia. Their hours are Monday–Thursday from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Some services may require a physician’s referral.

For a complete list of services and additional information, call 931.381.2110 or visit MauryRegional.com/MRMGUrologicalAssociates.

CA Named National Christian School of the Year (Press Release)

Columbia Academy has been named the National Christian School Association (NCSA) School of the Year for 2025, a recognition that reflects the school’s exceptional commitment to academic excellence, faith-based education, and community engagement. This announcement was made on November 21, during an assembly attended by the entire Columbia campus student body and staff.

Regarding the school, NCSA President Dr. Andrew Baker says, "What shines brightest at Columbia Academy is not simply their academic achievement or impressive growth, but their unwavering commitment to forming students who reflect the heart of Jesus. This award is well-deserved, and the entire NCSA family celebrates with them. Their story is a testimony to what faithful teachers, engaged families, and mission-driven leadership can accomplish together."

The NCSA, which represents over 70 schools nationwide, opened nominations for the award in April 2025, with voting taking place in May. The School of the Year title was determined by a vote from member schools within the association, making this recognition particularly significant as it reflects the support and admiration of Columbia Academy's peers nationwide.

"We are deeply humbled and incredibly honored to receive this recognition from our fellow schools within the National Christian School Association," said Dr. James A. Thomas, President of Columbia Academy. "This achievement is a testament to the hard work, dedication, and unwavering faith of our faculty, staff, students, and families." Columbia Academy’s journey to receiving this award has been marked by a continued dedication to providing an environment where students grow academically, physically, socially, and spiritually. Established in 1979, Columbia Academy serves 1235 preK - 12th grade students, a record enrollment for the 13th consecutive year.

City May See 149% Increase in Water Bill (MSM)

The Columbia City Council and a packed council room last week heard that CPWS water rates could increase by 149 percent over the next five years if the area were to experience no growth.

That information came during the city council’s study session last week, where CPWS CEO Jonathan Hardin explained the findings of the utility’s finished rate study.

To pay for updated and new water infrastructure, the utility set impact fees for new water mains and building permits and budgeted out 20 percent compounded annual increases over the next five years, which end up totaling 149 percent over current rates. These measures would pay down debts on projects that (at last estimate) include $82 million in updates to Columbia’s aging municipal pipe network, a new $280 million pipeline from Williamsport, and a $180 million facility that will treat an additional 12 million daily gallons of water (MGD).

Hardin added an important caveat to the rate increase, which mostly hadn’t entered the public discussion. The study, he said, wasn’t allowed to factor in any hypothetical growth or impact fees, even though expected population and industrial growth is what makes the new infrastructure necessary. In other words, the 149 percent increase would only fall on the current rate-payers if they gained no new neighbors or factories.

Though they couldn’t factor it into the study, CPWS officials are bullish on making up part of the difference with growth and grants. For one thing, businesses are chomping at the bit to move to the area: Hardin estimated that $10 billion in economic growth had been turned away from Maury County in the last several years, specifically for lack of water supply. The new impact fees they’d pay would further offset the cost, making “growth pay for growth” at least in part.

“As we realize growth, we will realize impact fees and consumption that will allow us to pay these [down],” Hardin promised.

“Note that the proposed ordinance would *allow* the rate increases, but not *require* them,” pointed out James Dallas, a prominent member of the county Democratic Party, in a Facebook post on the subject.

CPWS also plans to apply for lots of government aid. The state will make plenty of grant money available in 2026, which Hardin said they would prefer to distribute instead of giving it back to the federal government. The utility is also lobbying federal agencies for grants and elected representatives for appropriations, since it was the environmental advice of federal agencies — the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Tennessee Valley Authority — that prompted CPWS to place the intake in Williamsport.

No free money has yet been given to the projects, however. CPWS is now in talks to take out about $270 million in State Revolving Fund loans, and $135 million in 30-year federal WIFIA loans which have extremely generous terms; grants or appropriations would be used to pay down their debts to these.

Based on this, CPWS expects lower rate increases in years 3-5 of the schedule, though they can’t yet estimate how much. They would have to bring each increase before the city council for justification and approval each year.

Hardin also pointed out that if CPWS could offset the projected rate increases with growth fees, bringing them down to $8.96 per 1,000 gallons in 2030, that would still be far from the highest in the region — according to rate study findings shared with Main Street Maury, seven other utilities charge more than that even now. (CPWS’s current residential water rate of $3.75 per 1,000 gallons is one of the very lowest in middle Tennessee, 25th among 28 surveyed utility districts.) By 2030 the neighboring utilities might well raise their rates to fund growth-driven capital projects, Hardin said, which would make CPWS’s future rates even more competitive.

Controversy

A commotion arose around the rate increase as soon as the city published the meeting agenda. The rate study results were first presented to city councilors in individual private meetings in November, and when the rate increase was finally made public, several county commissioners and dozens of people registered their displeasure on social media.

Some of those commissioners, representing both areas of the city of Columbia and the unincorporated areas served by Maury County Water Services, gave public comment at the study session.

“For families living paycheck to paycheck, for seniors on fixed incomes, for parents raising children… water must remain dependable and affordable,” said Commission Chairman Danny Grooms, who represents the southwestern county’s District 10. “Development cannot move faster than the resources that support it.”

“I’ve heard a lot in the past six hours that I have not before… [but] the problem is transparency,” said Eric Previti, the District 2 county commissioner for south Columbia. “Everyone thinks [the rate increase has been proposed] because of the growth… and it is one of the reasons, but I’m [also] hearing issues about infrastructure… If this is why it’s got to happen, then you need to be more transparent with the public.”

As a consistent advocate for impact fees, Previti insisted, as did other commissioners and public commenters, that developers be made to take on the costs of the new infrastructure that serves their projects.

“The folks that are already here, that… have been here a long time, are carrying an unfair, uneven burden of various expenses,” said public commenter Chris Gramling, expressing support for impact fees.

Jason Gilliam, who sits on the board of Maury County Water Systems, pointed out that this increase would necessitate serious price hikes to their rural customers, over which they have no vote or influence. MCWS currently provides water at $9.47-9.82 per 1,000 gallons for normal residential users, but Gilliam said the rate increase would raise the CPWS’s wholesale rate from $3.75 per 1,000 gallons to approximately MCWS’s current charge.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what we’re talking about here is taxation without representation,” he said.

Gilliam also considered the pipeline and new intake to be wildly unaffordable. He compared it to MCWS’s own pipeline project, which would bring 3 million gallons per day of treated water about six miles south from the H.B.&T.S. Utility District, at a cost of $14 million ($7 million of it provided by grants) in less than a year; for another $51 million they could have gotten a total of 7 MGD.

“We could potentially have more than half the water that CPWS will provide from their intake, at one-tenth of the cost [of their whole project],” Gilliam said.

Though other speakers complained that CPWS has almost exclusive control on county water supply, Gilliam made it clear that MCWS wouldn’t wait for their permission to find other water sources or partners.

City Councilman Charlie Huffman, a career employee of CPWS, calculated that the lifetime interest on the project would come out to about $200 million; the first year’s payment alone would be $20 million.

“Our great-grandkids will have to pay for that,” he said.

Huffman said he had never seen rates drop in his 41 years with the utility, and declared that people in Maury County just can’t pay the new rates.

“There needs to be something else done,” he stressed.

“The funds will be on a ‘much longer than typical’ bond [of 30 years]. The proposed intake is stated [to be] a 20-30 year solution,” said County Commissioner Mike Kuzawinski in a Facebook post after the meeting. “So the debt outlasts the solution, per the presentation. How can this make any sense?”

Cindy Ryle, the owner of a 73-unit apartment complex filled with mostly retirees, said she had always paid the tenants’ water and sewer herself, but that monthly CPWS water charges for their facility are up about $2,000 over this time last year, forcing them to raise rent about $30 per unit on people living on social security or pensions. The proposed rate increase would drive many of their fixed-income tenants into government housing.

Hardin said he appreciated the “accountability” and dialogue offered by the meeting, and the chance it gave him to publicly explain the hard work behind and urgency of the project.

“I’m pleased… to discuss the culmination of more than a decade of effort,” he said. “We deserve to stand up here and speak to the public about what we’re doing and why.”

He argued that whatever other long-term regional solutions get pursued, CPWS’s new intake and treatment facilities are necessary expenses. The current intake sits behind a 100-year-old dam which requires vigilant maintenance, and which Hurricane Helene has shown to be vulnerable to previously impossible natural disasters.

The Williamsport intake is also in a more drought-resistant spot, and would provide more resilient water supply in an event like the severe drought of 2007-08 or the record-setting nationwide one of 1988-90. Most crucially, it would fulfill CPWS and Spring Hill’s outstanding water obligations to ongoing economic development: the “will-serve letters” they’ve already issued would exhaust the utilities’ old permits in a few years, when developers finish their current projects alone. CPWS Vice President Matt Wheeler estimated that the intake could give the county 15-30 years, depending on the rate of growth, to pick the next long-term solution.

“Like anyone, I do not enjoy discussing rate actions,” Hardin said. “But we’re talking about a shovel-ready solution that will allow us to take care of our friends and neighbors for decades to come.”

The mayor and vice-mayor agreed.

“Some of y’all would love to hear that we don’t grow any more, we shut the doors. That’s not going to happen,” Vice-Mayor Randy McBroom said. “It sounds like we have to do something. We only have a million gallons [of unused daily water capacity].”

“What is the cost of doing nothing… and what would the result be if we stayed where we are now and faced the potential of a water shortage?” Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder asked. “It’s the cost of not having adequate drinking water for our children and grandchildren.”

County Commissioner Gabe Howard urged people to turn out to the city voting session to make their voices heard on the rate-increase resolution.

“We have one shot to get this right,” he warned. “If we charge ahead without planning, we will regret it — financially and environmentally — for generations.”

Maury Alliance Annual Meeting (Press Release)

Join Maury Alliance on Thursday, January 29th, for their most anticipated event of the year, the Maury Alliance Annual Meeting! Celebrate the successes of 2025, honor the transition of their volunteer leadership, and discover their exciting strategic goals for 2026.—all while continuing to commemorate over 100 years of growth, innovation, and community impact in Maury County.  

Enjoy an evening filled with entertainment and networking celebrating business and industry in Maury County with a social hour, elegant dinner and live music.

Purchase tickets now to guarantee a seat at Maury Alliance’s biggest event of the year.

Registration will close January 19 at 5:00 pm. 

Get tickets and learn more by visiting www.mauryalliance.com.

And now, Your Hometown Memorials, Sponsored by Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home…

Karen M. Picard, a dedicated healthcare professional passed away peacefully on December 2, 2025, in Nashville, TN at the age of 80.

A memorial will be held on Saturday, December 13, 2025, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home in Columbia, TN.

Mrs. Clara Durand Ledbetter, 89, passed away on Thursday, November 27, 2025 at NHC Maury Regional Transitional Care Center surrounded by her loving family. A memorial service will be held on Monday, December 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home. Visitation will precede the service, beginning at 10:00 AM.

Now, news from around the state…

Governor Speaks at Farm Bureau Meeting (CDH)

After a year of struggles and uncertainty regarding the state's top industry, Gov. Bill Lee says he believes hope is on the horizon for Tennessee farmers.

Lee, who was the keynote speaker on the last day of Farm Bureau's 104th annual conference Tuesday, Dec. 9, addressed the current state of farming in Tennessee.

Lee highlighted the U.S. Department of Agriculture's announcement earlier in the week that $12 billion will be available as a one-time "bridge" to aid farmers who experienced losses in 2025.

"It's a hard time, and you need to know your elected officials understand that and are doing their best to navigate it in a way that is going to continue to help our industry, this industry of agriculture, moving forward in our state," Lee said.

Tennessee has lost nearly half a million acres between 2017-2022, equating to roughly 10 acres per hour, primarily to development, according to a Tennessee Farm Bureau report on land loss across the state.

"Don't forget to protect it, because it doesn't exist everywhere. And don't forget to defend it, because it is easily lost, and I've watched that in places around the country and around the world. We are very fortunate to be Tennesseans."

Payments for the Farmer Bridge Assistance program are expected to be released by Feb. 28, 2026, though farmers eligible must ensure their acreage reporting is accurate by Dec. 19.

Lee also remarked on Tennessee's legacy as a farming state, as well as his signing of the Farmland Preservation Act in May of this year, which established the permanent conservation to support farmers who voluntarily choose to protect their farmland.

"America has figured it out, and that's why so many people want to come and move here, why we have so many companies coming here, why the Farmland Preservation Act was important," Lee said.

In his final year as governor, Lee said support for Tennessee farmers will remain a major focus, though it plays a part in the bigger picture of all citizens of the Volunteer State.

"You do the best you can to make decisions that are going to impact every person in your state," Lee said. "You really try to consider how you are going to impact life for every Tennessean in a positive way. The quality of life of the entire state impacts all of us ... and what happens in rural Tennessee matters to every Tennessean, no matter where you live."

Farm Bureau Director of Communications Lee Maddox said the four-day conference capitalized on the hope for the future of farming despite rising costs, drought and tariffs as seen in many parts of the state and America.

While 2025 has had its share of struggles for Tennessee farmers, there is hope for Tennessee's No. 1 industry driver leading into 2026, Maddox said.

"It's special when you have a governor like Bill Lee, because he is a farmer and he's faith based, and that's what this organization is all about, especially this time of year with it being the Christmas season," Maddox said. "There is hope, because it's been a tough year in agriculture, but there is hope for a bigger year ahead. That's the big message out here."

Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)

The Crafts with Santa Event is set for Saturday, December 13th, 2025, from 11 am – 1 pm at Columbia Health Foods (106 W 7Th St, Columbia, TN).

Come visit with Santa, take pictures, and make crafts! You leave with your handmade craft and some goodies!

More information is found on the Crafts With Santa Facebook Page.