Southern Middle TN Today News with Tom Price 2-24-26

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Southern Middle Tennessee Today

News Copy for February 24, 2026

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

Judge to Rule on Landfill Near Duck River (CDH)

A Nashville judge is weighing what to do with a proposal to expand a landfill on a former Monsanto chemical plant near the Duck River in Maury County.

The Marshall/Maury Municipal Solid Waste Planning Region Board denied Louisiana-based Trinity Business Group's application to reopen and expand the old Monsanto landfill on April 10, 2023, after fierce community pushback. The proposed landfill would lie less than two miles from North America's most biologically diverse freshwater river and take in 1,000 tons of waste per day, most of which would come from outside the region, according to Lisa Helton, an attorney representing the board.

The judge, Davidson County Chancellor I'Ashea Myles, could affirm the board's decision to deny Trinity Business Group's application, reverse the decision and provide preliminary approval for the landfill, or send the application back to the board to hold another vote. Myles did not indicate at a hearing Feb. 20 when she might rule.

A reversal of the board's vote would not be an immediate green light for the landfill to be built. Katherine Barnes Cohn, an attorney representing Trinity Business Group, said the process is "almost comically complicated" and that it would take years to get final approval from the appropriate agencies.

Barnes Cohn said sending the issue back to the Marshall/Maury Municipal Solid Waste Planning Region Board would likely result in the application getting voted down again. But Myles questioned how she could reverse the board's vote.

"The court has a limited jurisdiction," Myles said. "I can't substitute my judgment for that of the board."

Barnes Cohn indicated that Trinity Business Group may change course if the board's vote is not reversed.

"It's become a business decision for Remedial Holdings on how to proceed," Barnes Cohn said, referring to the local subsidiary of Trinity Business Group. "We're just not sure that where we go from here is the same as where we've been."

Stephanie Sparks-Newland, who attended the Feb. 20 hearing and is secretary for the community group Friends of the Duck River, said "it's sad we have to fight so hard to save the environment." Sparks-Newland said she sees the landfill proposal as a money-making operation that is opposed to the community's interests.

"This is our yard, but you want to bring everybody else's garbage to us," Sparks-Newland said.

Monsanto once made fertilizers and chemical weapons at the Maury County site. It had one landfill that was used solely for Monsanto waste, Helton said. When the company stopped operating in 1989, it left Columbia with four Superfund sites, areas designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as particularly hazardous and contaminated.

Trinity Business Group's proposed landfill facility would include one 305-acre site for household waste and a 79-acre site for construction waste, Helton said.

Community members protested in outrage at the proposal at the Marshall/Maury Municipal Solid Waste Planning Region Board meeting in April 2023, Sparks-Newland said. Community members voiced concerns over the landfill's potential impact on drinking water, including on a new water intake downstream of the proposed landfill. Board members voted down the application 7-1.

Trinity Business Group's local subsidiary Remedial Holdings sued the board a month later. The case finally had its final hearing Feb. 20, where arguments centered around whether the board complied with the Tennessee Open Meetings Act when it voted against the application.

After hearing public comment, board members immediately voted down the application without deliberation, Barnes Cohn said. She argued the Tennessee Open Meetings Act requires board members to deliberate and discuss their reasons for voting against an application.

On April 22, 2023, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a bill designating the Duck a Class II scenic river. This classification prohibits the development of a landfill within two miles of the river.

Molder Named Priority Candidate (Tennessean)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has named District 5 Congressional candidate Chaz Molder to its competitive "Red to Blue" program — a signal of Democrats’ confidence they can flip Tennessee's 5th Congressional District in November.

DCCC's affirmation comes with logistical support for Molder’s campaign, including staff, candidate training, fundraising support, and strategic advising. And it follows assessments by Cook Political Report and Inside Politics that has shifted in favor of Democrats.

“People want someone who’s focused on issues that actually matter," Molder told The Tennessean. “Potholes don’t have partisan labels."

Molder, who has served as mayor of Columbia, Tennessee since 2018, is the frontrunner in the Democratic primary in District 5. His campaign has raised more than $1.2 million in campaign contributions since September. He faces Mike Cortese in the Democratic primary.

Whoever wins that race will face two-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Columbia in the general election. Ogles was Maury County Mayor concurrently with Molder for a time.

“Even then, he’s always been focused on partisanship and issues that divide,” Molder said, noting Ogles’ recent calls for an FCC investigation of the Super Bowl halftime show or repeated attacks on New York Mayor Zorhan Mamdani.

“Andy Ogles seems to be focused on making national headlines for the wrong reasons instead of making local headlines for the right reasons,” he said.

Republican lawmakers the 5th District’s boundaries in 2021 gerrymandering a slice of Davidson County in with wide swaths of rural Lewis and Marshall Counties down to the Alabama border.

It’s a district designed to be friendly to GOP candidates – and since redistricting, Ogles has won with 13-point and 17-point victory margins.

But Molder has won tough races before. In 2018, he beat two-term incumbent Republican Mayor Dean Dickey by “focusing on issues that bring people together.”

His strategy this cycle – in a district where the odds are tough – is to make genuine connections with voters by being himself and showing voters his own values. A Columbia native and product of public schools, Molder still attends the same church he grew up in in Columbia. 

“We need unity more than ever,” he said. 

As a small town mayor, Molder wants to bring “small town budgeting” like what he’s managed in Columbia to Washington D.C. He pointed to his work to pass balanced budgets and avoiding property tax hikes during his tenure. 

If elected, he says he would focus on healthcare affordability, noting Ogles’ votes against extending health care tax subsidies that resulted in about 70,000 Tennesseans losing access to Marketplace health insurance. He’d also look for ways to make medical care more accessible in rural counties. 

“I look forward to a robust debate,” he said. 

In his spare time, Molder bonds with his family and three kids – ages 15, 12 and 9. He stays grounded by going on daily runs, and cheers for his alma mater, the University of Tennessee, where his political experience began as student body president.

The Red to Blue designation follows grassroots momentum Molder says he’s seeing from small business owners, veterans and teachers in the district who are ready for a change. 

“Mayor Molder is the leader that Middle Tennesseans deserve – someone who will put the fight for working families above social media antics,” said DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene. “A battle-tested winner who prioritizes his community above all else, Chaz has what it takes to reach Tennessee voters across all walks of life and finally retire Andy Ogles this November.”

Earlier this month, Molder won the endorsement of former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, who represented the 5th District until district lines were redrawn in 2022. 

Aggrieved City Employee Files Federal Suit (MSM)

Christy Daus, an employee of the City of Columbia’s Public Works Department, filed suit on Feb. 17 with the U.S. Middle District Court of Tennessee, alleging that the city violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free speech and equal protection.

According to the complaint, Daus, a civil servant of many years, has worked as an administrative assistant in Columbia Public Works since October 2024. She had never received any work complaints or disciplinary notices until Dec. 1, 2025, when she was reprimanded by the directors of the city’s Public Works and Human Resources departments for “disgraceful conduct.”

In the complaint, Daus alleges that the directors told her she had “violated the city’s personnel policies… [with] what she said at a city council meeting [on Nov. 13] (while off-duty and speaking as a private citizen).” Daus didn’t receive any follow-up discipline, but she claims that her later interactions with other employees, especially higher-ups, were “chilled” and that she missed out on work training to which other employees were invited.

Daus and her attorney, Dustin Kittle, claim the rebuke was a retaliatory move that originated at the highest level of city government. Daus had written and spoken several times in public comment against the Waters Edge apartment complex that Meritage Homes sought to build in her Taylor Landing neighborhood. Most of her objections were to the suitability and infrastructural impact of the complex, but at the Nov. 13 meeting she and other commenters also criticized the city council for adding it back to the agenda, after the resolution had “failed” in a 2-2-2 vote the previous month.

The opponents of Waters Edge, Daus included, challenged the procedural soundness of “reconsidering” the project, especially on such short notice. A public records request by Dustin Kittle found emails which he claims indicate that representatives of the developer had successfully petitioned city officials, and the city councilors one-on-one (so as not to break the “sunshine law”), to get a motion to reconsider on the November agenda.

“This leads people to believe that there’s some very nefarious and self-serving intentions here,” Daus said in the most strongly worded parts of her Nov. 13 speech, before the messages between the developer and the city became public knowledge. “We just want some clarification and… to make sure that there’s no self-serving intentions or nefarious things going on here.”

This speech, Daus said she was told by Public Works and Human Resources officials, made her liable to discipline for “disgraceful personal conduct toward… the city council [or] other officials of the city.” She also recalls that the directors “further stated, in substance,” that the initiative to discipline her came from senior officials, “including the mayor and city manager.”

Proof for this impression came from more public records pulled by Kittle, showing that City Manager Tony Massey forwarded one of Daus’s emailed comments — a Dec. 8, 2025 email which criticized the apartment complex, not her Nov. 13 spoken criticism of the city’s procedural actions — to the two directors on Dec. 9 and 10, several days after they reprimanded her.

“[Because of the] temporal proximity between plaintiff’s speech and the city’s [action],” Kittle said in the complaint, and because the city didn’t take additional required steps towards the termination they allegedly threatened, “City officials used the meeting as an intimidation event to deter future speech.”

After the reprimand, Daus reported that her reception at work was “chilled:” in the complaint she mentions “exclusion from meetings, diminished workplace interactions and denial or reduction in training opportunities… [in general] a marked change in workplace demeanor and opportunities.” She received this treatment from her coworkers too, whom she believes were told only that she had been called in for misconduct.

The lawsuit seeks damages to recompense Daus’s “chilled… participation” in work life and “expended time and resources to protect her employment, reputation and property interests,” and to reinforce freedom of speech for city employees. The suit cites the Supreme Court cases Pickering v. Board of Education, Connick v. Myers, and Lane v. Franks, which protect public employees’ First Amendment right to make public comment without conflict of interest. It also alleges that Daus received unequal treatment, against the Fourteenth Amendment, compared to other city employees and public commenters. The filers believe that she’s not the only city employee whose speech was “chilled” on the issue, but so far she’s the only one that’s taken public action on it.

None of the three city officials named in the complaint — Mayor Chaz Molder, City Manager Tony Massey and Human Resources Director Wanda McClain — have responded to Main Street Maury’s request for comment.

Ogles Asks for Dam Feasibility Study (CDH)

U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tennessee, 5th Congressional District, announced last week he has filed legislation to pursue a feasibility study to revitalize the Columbia Dam project.

Ogles announced the filing on social media Feb. 18.

"I have submitted an official legislative request to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to authorize an Army Corps of Engineers feasibility study to reconstruct the Columbia Dam," Ogles wrote.

"Things are now in motion. This is an arduous bureaucratic process, but I am committed to seeing it through and securing reliable, affordable water for our region for generations to come."

The Columbia Dam Project dates back to the early 1970s, with construction halting on the $82 million project in the 1980s and ultimately the dismantling of the almost-completed dam in the 1990s, leaving several landowners without property they had forfeited for the project.

"We feel pretty good where we are right now," said Columbia Dam Now Chairman Jason Gilliam, who helped found the grassroots campaign to revitalize the long-dormant project in 2025.

The legislation would require approval before the study could take place.

"They've been working on it for quite some time, and the wheels move slowly in D.C. when you are doing stuff like this, and so you just have to stay the course," Gilliam said. "We want to get as much water we can get with the least amount of impact possible so we can have an affordable water solution not only for people of Maury County, but surrounding areas. That's been our goal all along."

Gilliam added that the study would consist of the Army Corps of Engineers selecting an entity to conduct the study. He also hopes having a proper feasibility study would bestow confidence to others that the project could be accomplished.

"Obviously, I am very excited, because this is the major step toward answering all of these questions and settling all of these rumors that have been out there for decades based off innuendo and old stories, and not what's actually factual," Gilliam said. "That's why we have been pushing so hard to get this study. We want the actual truth, the actual data in 2026, not some rumor from 1968. We shall see."

In spite of the forward momentum, the potential Columbia Dam project continues to draw opposition in cost and its environmental impact on the Duck River.

For Gale Moore, one of the leading voices in opposition as part of the Don't Dam the Duck group, Ogles' latest filing for legislation could be considered "misleading," she said.

"He says he will get TVA or the Army Corps of Engineers to act like they are going to build it ... ," Moore said, emphasizing that each of those entities had not committed to building the dam. "I was in a meeting last week with the Duck River Planning Partnership, and at that meeting all of those experts said the dam will cost $3-$4 billion, [while TVA and Corps have not committed to the project]."

The Don't Dam the Duck group was formed by citizens who oppose the project, arguing that the expense and ecological effects would not be in the best interest of the community and supports exploring other options.

Maury County Democratic Party Chairman James Dallas responded to Ogles' post, saying the feasibility study is "missing a lot of steps between 'fund study' and 'Columbia Dam.'"

"Does the dam itself get funded?" Dallas wrote. "Funding a feasibility study does not by itself guarantee congressional funding for TVA to actually build the dam. Note that it may require multiple years of budget appropriations to build it.

"Every single bureaucratic issue that CPWS has had with the Williamsport intake is also going to impact the proposed dam, and probably much harder."

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

Cody Da’various Jackson, 33, a former resident of Columbia, died Friday, February 20, 2026 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

A celebration of life service will be conducted Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 2:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home with his Godmother Cathy Martin presiding over the services. The family will gather from 1:00 PM until time of the services at the funeral home. 

Byrd Douglas Cain Jr., passed away peacefully on Wednesday, February 18th.

The family will receive friends at St. Peter's Episcopal Church at 311 West 7th St. Columbia, TN on Monday, March 2nd at 12:30 PM. The service will begin at 2 PM, also at St. Peters. Friends are invited to join the family following the service to celebrate Byrd’s life at Graymere Country Club at 2100 Country Club Ln, Columbia, TN.

James W. Borum, Age 78, and resident of Columbia, TN, died Thursday, February 19, 2026 at his residence.

Per Jim’s wishes no service will be held.  

Robin “Rob” Stephen Morrow, 64, a resident of Springfield, TN died Friday, February 20, 2026 at St. Thomas West Hospital.

A Celebration of Life service will be conducted Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 3:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home with Allen Lancaster officiating. The family will visit with friends Thursday from 1:00 PM until the service time.

Edward Allen “Toby” Clark, 87, resident of McMinnville, passed on February 15, 2026.

Funeral services will be conducted Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 1:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home with military honors provided by the Herbert Griffin American Legion Post 19. Burial will follow at Giles Memory Gardens in Pulaski, TN. The family will visit with friends Saturday from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home.

Judy Marie Miller Carter, 77, of Spring Hill, TN passed away peacefully on February 16th. 

A funeral mass will be conducted Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 10:30 A.M. at St. Catherine Catholic Church.

Kay Derryberry Rodgers, 83, a resident of Columbia, TN died Wednesday, February 18, 2026, at NHC Maury Regional Transitional Care.

A Memorial Service will be conducted Saturday, March 7, 2026, at 2:00 PM at Westminster Presbyterian Church with Rev. Jeff Kane officiating. A private burial will occur at Lone Oak Cemetery in Lewisburg. The family will visit with friends Saturday from 12 PM until the service time at the church. 

Shamar Carlito Fason, age 4 passed away on February 16th. The family will visit with loved ones in a celebration of Shamar’s life on Friday, February 27, from 4-7 PM at Maury Hills Church. Shamar was able to see best in bright colors, so the family requests that everyone wear something bright and cheerful if possible. Red was his favorite.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggest donations can be made in Shamar’s memory to United Cerebral Palsy of Middle Tennessee.

Now, news from around the state…

Small Fire in Spring Hill School (Fox17.com)

A “small fire” interrupted classes Monday morning at a Williamson County middle school.

A district spokesperson said students and staff evacuated Spring Station Middle School after the flames were discovered in a mechanical closet. The school principal notified parents of the evacuation just after 10 a.m.

The fire was extinguished, and both students and staff were moved to the Summit High School gym while the Spring Hill Fire Department worked to clear the building of smoke.

A spokesperson for the fire department confirmed that an accidental HVAC mechanical fire was the source of the flames.

A district spokesperson confirmed Monday afternoon that after the “brief” evacuation, classes have resumed.

No injuries were reported.

Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is set to open its latest installment of "American Currents: State of the Music" on March 18, 2026.

Designed to offer perspective on country music’s latest chapter by presenting a broad view of the genre throughout the past year to explore musical developments, artist achievements and notable events, as determined by the museum’s curators and editorial staff.

The museum will host programming related to the exhibition, including a songwriter session with Carter Faith on March 21 and a musician spotlight with Sierra Hull on March. 22. Visit the museum’s website at countrymusichalloffame.org/ .