Southern Middle TN Today News with Tom Price 12-22-25

WKOM/WKRM Radio

Southern Middle Tennessee Today

News Copy for December 22, 2025

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

We start with local news…

Mt. Pleasant Votes Down Development (MSM)

The Mount Pleasant City Commission voted 5-0 last Tuesday to “abandon and discontinue” the proceedings to annex the 106-acre Armstrong property, also known as the historic Ashwood Hall property.

John Maher Builders had hoped to build a subdivision of 247 houses on the property, with utility services from providers including the city of Mount Pleasant, Columbia Power and Water Systems and the new private entity Edge Wastewater. The city Planning Commission voted twice against the annexation and plan of services, but when it first appeared before them a slim majority of the city commissioners indicated they might vote for the development, variously because it would add rooftops, tax and fee revenue, and economic and social vitality to the city.

However, months of organized opposition from hundreds of people — more than 70 spoke at the last public-comment session alone — convinced the developer and the city commission to back down. A local attorney Dustin Kittle, also challenged the plan of services, especially the wastewater provider, over the rate of failure in the proposed wastewater treatment plant, and even raised the possibility of a lawsuit if it went forward. At the city’s study session the previous week, the city commission and developer seemed to make their peace with cancelling the development.

“I’m just glad it’s coming to an end,” said Commissioner Mike Davis, who from early in the process had objected to incorporating a development that Mount Pleasant couldn’t provide with all city services.

“I know this is not an easy choice, especially with social media in the age of information, when it’s all laid bare,” said Katie Martin, one of the main organizers of the protests against the development. “I think that moving forward, we can… facilitate conversations before hard decisions are presented to the community… What everybody in this room wants is open communication and to know what’s going on.”

Chris Gramling, a resident of Culleoka, asked the city commission to consider advertising major developments in media that would reach a greater number of passive viewers, many of them too busy to stay on top of city business.

“I think that we need to do something beyond just the [city] website and the newspaper. I don’t know if we need to put something on a billboard,” he said. “There are a lot of people that are deeply affected by these issues, and they don’t even know what’s going on.”

City Commissioners Willie Alderson and Pam Johnston replied that the city already publishes development notices in several venues; citizens have to take the initiative to find out, and tell their neighbors about, developments that might affect them, to keep track of them, and to comment on them at city study sessions.

“Yes, we can do a better job of trying to spread the word, but really, it [only] happens when you guys are here and listening to what’s being discussed,” Johnston said. “At most of those discussion meetings, there is nobody here. Then people show up on the decision nights… and they get frustrated. I would just encourage you to continue to be involved and… ask questions… All of us [city commissioners] are open to being called or emailed.”

In other Mt. Pleasant business

The city bestowed Life Safety Awards on six public servants that night, for saving Christopher Duke’s life on May 11.

Two police officers, Scotty Beach and Jason Cogdill, and four firefighters — Corey Fields, Caleb Clayton, Matthew Johnson and Lt. Deon Hardison — responded to a “man down” alert on Locust Street on that afternoon in May.

Fields and Hardison resuscitated the victim with several rounds of CPR and defibrillation, and the other men helped keep Duke stable until EMS arrived. Duke recovered enough to leave Maury Regional Medical Center on May 17, and he and his wife attended the meeting to give their personal thanks to the first responders.

The staff and officials of the City of Mount Pleasant have been hard at work on water and wastewater issues lately. In the afternoon on the day of the meeting, TDEC informed Mayor Bill White that they had closed a two-decade-old consent order against the city’s wastewater plant.

White said he called his predecessor Jim Bailey, to thank him for making progress on getting the order resolved, and former USDA head Jim Tracy, for getting the plant large amounts of government money — $10 million in non-matching grants and a 40-year loan at one-percent interest — for the required improvements, which greatly eased the burden on sewer rate-payers.

“This is monumental,” White told the audience. “And we did not have to increase the tax rates to do this.”

Budget Director Shiphrah Cox pointed out that the city has put $869,000 of its own money into improving and augmenting water infrastructure in the last two months. The city can count on lower “maintenance” costs once these and other assets are complete, she said, but Mount Pleasant is striking while the financial iron is hot.

The infrastructure investments are reportedly paying off, too. Grooms announced that by finding and fixing 129 leaks throughout their city water system, the city also saves 400 gallons per minute that it would have otherwise lost. According to the mayor, so much water has been saved that they hardly purchase water from other suppliers anymore.

Another USDA grant has recently bought a third filtration “skid” for their water-treatment plant at Sandy Hook, and Mount Pleasant Water is in the process of drilling a well next door that is expected to be capable of drawing 100 gallons per minute.

“We are doing everything possible that we can do without raising rates… to become self-sufficient in water,” Mayor White said.

City Manager Philip Grooms also praised Employee of the Month Eric Kennedy, for serving as Manager of city wastewater for a quarter-century and being “a valuable asset during the transition… to the new facility.”

Water Rate Increase Vote (MSM)

The Columbia City Council voted 4-3 in favor of a potential water rate increase and impact fees that first appeared before them in the previous week’s study session. Last week’s vote was the first reading for the rate increase, which will come before the council again in January for second reading.

Public commenters last week objected to the amount of the rate increases and to the city’s apparently unilateral action on the matter.

The rate increase was made public after Columbia Power and Water Systems (CPWS) finished their rate study in November. At the Dec. 4 study session, CPWS CEO Jonathan Hardin explained that his utility needs the city council’s permission to raise rates, to pay for $82 million in updates to the city’s existing infrastructure and $520 million for a new Williamsport water intake, pipeline and treatment plant.

The rate study found that with only their current customer base and no area growth, rates would have to increase 149 percent over five years to pay for these projects. CPWS expects impact fees and new rate-payers, and hopes to secure state and federal grants, to avoid an increase of that size.

Hardin also revealed that during the loan negotiation process, the federal government had asked CPWS to add 20 percent to the projected cost to account for construction inflation, resulting in the final loan total of $520 million.

“We are very appreciative of the Columbia City Council for weighing the facts in voting favorably for this ordinance. Our work on this project over the last decade has culminated to this point,” said a statement released by Columbia Power and Water (CPWS), the utility that requested the rate increase. “CPWS customers have consistently seen rates among the lowest in the state because of well-built infrastructure and sound financial management throughout its history, but now it’s our responsibility to ensure the future generations of Columbia can enjoy clean, reliable water. While rate increases are sometimes necessary to fund capital projects, diversifying those rates between individuals, industry, and developers through the years of impact fees we have collected will be a key component for [funding] this project.”

CPWS has created a webpage of “Frequently Asked Questions” at communityh20.org/rate-information, to answer questions and remedy what they call widespread “misinformation” about the rate increases.

Opposed public comment

“It’s going to put a lot of farmers out of business,” complained Trevor Pennington, a beef farmer who buys his water from MCWS.

He speculated that it might be cheaper to rescind all the city’s outstanding building permits and fight the developers in court.

“It [won’t be] a sustainable practice to feed our communities… if farmers give up their property because they can’t afford to farm anymore.”

Several county officials spoke during public comment, urging the city council to hold off on a vote until CPWS’s regional partners, wholesale customer utilities and rate-payers could weigh in on the rate increase and the new water-withdrawal strategy. CPWS sells water wholesale to Spring Hill, Mount Pleasant and the Maury County Water System (MCWS) for $3.75 per thousand gallons; on Hardin’s estimate, even if new customers and impact fees were to bring that down, it has been estimated the wholesale floor would probably rise to about $9 per thousand gallons.

County Mayor Sheila Butt said she sympathized with the city. Columbia has been working since 2014 to change the location and increasing the amount of water intake, but regional, state and federal approvals took 10 years to secure. The new consideration over the last year has been the Duck River Watershed Planning Partnership (on which Butt sits), which Gov. Bill Lee created in early 2025 to study and coordinate region-wide solutions to area water supply and ecological issues.

“Regional authorities have a much stronger standing in bargaining,” Butt argued, and the economics of scale would further reduce costs.

If the pipeline to Williamsport were found to be the least costly and most environmentally friendly solution, she said she would go to bat for it herself, but she wants to take that solution, along with other options, before the Planning Partnership and get county-wide, even regional input first.

“I’ve consistently advocated to this body for a regional water authority… A single city-owned utility should not be the only authority for a regional water project of this scale,” County Commissioner Gabe Howard said.

“You guys are putting the whole county on the hook for $520 million for 30 years, maybe 40, for a project [whose water supply] they say will last maybe 20 years,” said Jason Gilliam, a MCWS board member. “We need to take the time… [to] find a better method.”

County Commissioner Mike Kuzawinski urged the city council to put the issue to a referendum if it was so urgent.

“It would cost a little bit of time… to think about this better,” he said. “If you do push this through, it would cost the trust of the community.”

The meeting featured an unusual appearance: from State Representative Scott Cepicky.

“I haven’t been here in a long time [because] I try and stay out of your business,” he said, but his constituents had asked him to weigh in.

He said the Tennessee Board of Utility Regulation transmitted their concerns to him about CPWS’s ability to pay for the project with future funds.

“We [at the state level] have concerns about this: is this the best use of half a billion dollars, and are you going to be able to repay it?”

In response to the representative’s comments, a CPWS official explained that the state comptroller’s office regulates their finances and accepts their rate schedule, and the utility feels confident that the proposed rates will be approved. CPWS worked with the consulting firm Raftelis to determine the new water rates, but can’t send them to the comptroller for approval until the city council votes for them.

The new impact-fee schedule was praised by a few commenters. Some officials, including County Commissioner Eric Previti and former county water board member Larry Chunn, supported it as a way to ease the burden of the household rate-payers.

“We say that growth should pay for growth, but we know that that’s not the case,” said Previti. “We need to not leave money on the table, and so I support these impact fees.”

We’re proud to have them in place, we’re happy to escalate them into the future,” said Jonathan Hardin, CEO of CPWS.

The impact fees in the schedule were the highest that CPWS expects the comptroller’s office to approve. The state limits impact fees to keep utilities from “over-recovering” revenue and burdening developers.

“You’re striking a fine line between collecting enough and… not having enough growth… to monetize.”

Doug Jones, president of the Duck River Conservancy, declared in the meeting that the current leadership of Hickman County hadn’t been a part of the conversation about an intake that will be only a short distance from the Maury-Hickman county line.

“You go outside of the city limits of Columbia and you can’t find anybody that supports this,” Jones said.

In conversation with Main Street Maury, the mayors of Hickman County and Centerville expressed dislike for the pipeline project and the new permit that TDEC granted to CPWS this year, which allows them to draw up to 32 million gallons per day from the Duck River upstream of Hickman County.

“I have not spoken to anybody from Columbia Water and Power,” said Jim Bates, mayor of Hickman County, in a conversation with Main Street Maury. “Whoever does TDEC’s checking [for permits], it seems, stopped at Columbia… and said the water level is fine.”

During last fall’s drought Bates brought TDEC to Hickman County to see how low the Duck had gotten before and when it reaches Centerville.

“Where there was supposed to be 18 feet of water, we were not getting our shoes wet,” he observed.

“The general consensus here is, we are not on board with [the Williamsport intake] project,” Mayor Garry Greer of Centerville told Main Street Maury.

If the Duck’s water levels were to fall again, the mayor explained that Hickman County farmers, industries and property owners with vested rights could suffer once again for lack of water.

City officials’ thoughts

Mayor Chaz Molder read a statement on his unexpected “No” vote. While he supports the projects that the rate increases would fund and urged city officials and staff to keep working on them, he demurred from locking it in as he approaches his last year in office. Molder announced earlier this year that he won’t run for mayor again in 2026, as he’s now campaigning for the District 5 seat in the U.S. Congress now held by Andy Ogles.

Councilman Brian McKelvy called Hardin and CPWS vice-CEO Matt Wheeler to the stand to explain briefly why they consider the improvements and charges necessary. The officials explained that the Tennessee Valley Authority had suggested moving CPWS’s intake in 2001, and the Duck River Agency revived the idea in 2014. The century-old Riverside Drive dam is vulnerable to severe weather like Hurricane Helene, and the intake behind it is also in an environmentally sensitive spot.

With input from federal and state agencies, and in partnership with Maury County Water, which later dropped out to pursue its own water solutions, and the city of Spring Hill, which has the right to claim up to seven million gallons from the intake, CPWS decided to install a new intake in a more environmentally resilient spot in the Duck River near Williamsport. A 17-mile pipeline would lead from there to a new treatment plant on the Nashville Highway, next to the existing one.

“This downstream intake project… comes from many, many years of work with the Duck River Agency, vetting water supply studies over the long haul,” said Dan Allen, head of Spring Hill’s water department, who had found CPWS to be good partners on this and other projects. “Whatever path you take, we just want you to know that we’ll work with you.”

Officials also believe they can bring rates down with actual growth, but they weren’t allowed to factor growth into the official rate study. They also hope to offset it further with grants from state and federal agencies.

“This is a ceiling rate action,” said Wheeler, allowing CPWS to charge the given rates only if they needed to; they would have to justify every actual rate increase to the city council annually, who would then vote on it.

Councilman Charlie Huffman, a retired employee of 41 years at CPWS, questioned the numbers that his old employer had quoted for the project. At last week’s study session, he claimed that CPWS has “almost $100 million” in outstanding debt, right after Hardin had said they had none. Huffman said he also consulted with a banker, who calculated that CPWS would end up paying a total of $1.35 billion on the pipeline project, even at the generous terms of 3 percent interest over 30 years.

“These numbers they’ve put out, they may not be true numbers,” he warned.

Hardin later told Main Street Maury that CPWS has only $3.9 million in “long-term” debt, which was what he thought Huffman meant by “debt.” They also hold $16.88 million in “short-term” debt, which will be paid off from the upcoming $520 million loan.

“If we had gone up gradually [on water rates], we wouldn’t be in this shape right now,” Vice-Mayor Randy McBroom said in reply to the public commenters.

He said he had found 30-year-old news articles about rate increases, but people complained enough about them to get them cancelled.

“This is a passionate subject… [and] I do understand everybody’s concern, but in the past we’ve had this same conversation.”

McBroom also defended CPWS, who he said has proposed the only fully vetted, “shovel-ready” solution to municipal water needs.

“They are trying to be responsible, [and] the growth has hit,” McBroom said. “If anything, it’s moving on.”

Laws Saving Paws (Press Release)

Laws Saving Paws (LSP), a Tennessee-based animal welfare advocacy organization, has launched the Better Boards Campaign, a focused effort urging Tractor Supply Co. to update its community board guidelines to better align with responsible animal welfare practices.

While TSC actively promotes pet adoption and responsible ownership through partnerships with animal welfare organizations, many in-store community boards continue to allow postings for unregulated puppy sales. LSP says these postings contradict TSC’s advocacy and partnerships—and contribute to over breeding, shelter overcrowding, and animal neglect.

“If we want to move the needle on the animal crisis, we have to address everyday systems that quietly fuel it,” said Meaghan Thiede, President at Laws Saving Paws. “In our view, allowing irresponsible breeder advertisements on community boards can detract from the adoption and rescue efforts TSC publicly supports.”

The Better Boards Campaign calls on TSC to:

• Strengthen guidelines for pet-related community board postings

• Discourage unregulated breeder advertisements

• Elevate adoption, spay/neuter education, and responsible ownership resources

LSP reached out to TSC and received a response from their Customer Solutions team indicating that they are reviewing existing community board guidelines to better align with their support for shelters, rescues, and responsible pet care. In the meantime, LSP is encouraging supporters to participate through a mailed letter-writing effort directed to TSC leadership—a proven way to influence corporate policy change.

The campaign also encourages supporters to contact partner organizations, including MuttNation Foundation, to call for consistency between TSC’s adoption-focused partnerships and the practices allowed on its community boards.

More information, including where to send your letters and emails, about the Better Boards Campaign is available at www.lawssavingpaws.org/betterboards.

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

Robert “Bobby” Wayne Bishop, 68, passed away Thursday, December 18, 2025, at his residence. Funeral services will be conducted Tuesday, December 23, 2025 at 11:00 AM at Graymere Church of Christ. Burial will follow at Polk Memorial Gardens. The family will visit with friends Monday from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM and Tuesday from 10:00 AM until time of the services at Graymere Church of Christ.

Now, news from around the state…

THP Graduation (Press Release)

On Dec. 17, Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Jeff Long and Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) Colonel Matt Perry welcomed the newest graduating class of Tennessee State Troopers. The department instructed a regular 17-week Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Academy that exceeded the Tennessee Peace Officers Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) Commission requirements. The graduation ceremony took place at Donelson First in Nashville.

The 32 graduates of THP Class 1225 had a combined 57 years of military experience, 6 associate’s degrees, and 9 bachelor’s degrees. Trooper Class 1225 additionally hosted a blood drive with Blood Assurance.  Governor Bill Lee served as the keynote speaker during the graduation ceremony, and Commissioner Long swore in the new troopers as they delivered their oaths of office.

“Today we celebrate the dedication, resilience, and hard work these new troopers have shown in preparing to join one of the most respected law enforcement agencies in the nation,” said Commissioner Long. “Tennessee State Troopers answer the call to serve and protect the people of Tennessee with honor and integrity. Congratulations each of them, and the families who’ve supported them, for this tremendous accomplishment.”

Colonel Perry addressed the newest members of the THP, telling them, “By choosing to join the Tennessee Highway Patrol, you’ve embraced a mission focused on protecting lives, ensuring road safety, and upholding the law with integrity and professionalism.” He continued, “Every action you take can prevent a tragedy, save a life, or change someone’s perception of law enforcement. That is the true weight and honor of the badge you now wear.” He concluded by expressing his appreciation for their commitment to service, stating, “I’m grateful to know that when Tennessee calls, you’ll be there to answer.”

Trooper Tristan Wright was named the top Trooper for Class 1225 and was presented with the Trooper Calvin Jenks Memorial Award for Excellence for his leadership, work ethic, and academics. The award was named in honor of the late Trooper Calvin Jenks, who was killed in the line of duty in January 2007.   

Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)

Columbia Parks and Recreation is inviting older adults to discover a fitness program designed with their specific needs in mind—and it won’t cost a penny to participate.

The Stay Active & Independent for Life (S.A.I.L.) program offers twice-weekly sessions at the Macedonia Recreation Center, led by a certified instructor. Taking place Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11am – 12pm, the classes provide more than just physical exercise—they’re building a community of active seniors committed to maintaining independence and vitality.

S.A.I.L. follows an evidence-based curriculum specifically developed for adults 65 and older. The program addresses the particular challenges this age group faces, focusing on strength building, balance improvement, and confidence enhancement through carefully designed activities.

The Macedonia Recreation Center is located at 501 Armstrong Street.