Southern Middle TN Today News with Tom Price 7-9-26

WKOM/WKRM Radio

Southern Middle Tennessee Today

News Copy for July 9, 2026

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

Spring Hill Woman Found Dead (MauryCountySource)

A Spring Hill woman who was reported missing with her 8-year-old daughter has been found dead in Ohio, one day after her family contacted police, WSMV reports.

The Spring Hill Police Department received a missing persons report on July 2 for 37-year-old Amber Graham and her daughter.

According to Graham’s family, she had traveled to Cleveland to meet a friend.

Police said Graham had previously traveled to Ohio on June 14 and returned home on June 20 before leaving again with her daughter.

On July 3, the Cleveland Division of Police notified Spring Hill police that Graham had been found dead in the backyard of a home.

Graham’s 8-year-old daughter was located safely by Cleveland police and was placed in the custody of Ohio’s Department of Children and Youth.

Spring Hill police said they are working with Cleveland investigators as the death investigation continues.

Mt. Olivet Bridge Closure (Press Release)

The City of Columbia is notifying residents that the Mt. Olivet Bridge at Bear Creek Pike will close effective Monday, July 13, 2026, due to structural concerns.

The Mt. Olivet Bridge replacement project is a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) project funded by the State of Tennessee and is currently scheduled for 2029. Due to the impact the closure could have on and daily local travel, the City of Columbia has requested that TDOT evaluate opportunities to expedite the project timeline.

The City of Columbia will continue coordinating with TDOT and sharing information as it becomes available regarding the project timeline, detour routes, and future construction schedule.

Motorists are encouraged to follow posted detour signage and allow additional travel time while the bridge remains closed.

The City appreciates the public’s patience and understanding during this closure and will provide updates as additional information is made available.

CFD Push-In Ceremony (Press Release)

Columbia Fire & Rescue invites residents to celebrate the arrival of its newest fire engine during an Engine 5 Push-In Ceremony and Community Open House on Friday, July 17, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to noon at Fire Station 5, 2633 Nashville Highway.

The Push-In Ceremony is a longstanding fire service tradition that symbolizes placing a new apparatus into service. Following the ceremony, attendees are invited to enjoy a family-friendly open house featuring fire station tours, opportunities to meet local firefighters, fire safety activities, and free food.

The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Columbia Fire & Rescue at (931) 560- 1700

Maury County Passes Budget (MSM)

The Maury County Commission approved a $307.7 million budget for the coming fiscal year, with more than half those funds going to county schools.

The school district has been directly endowed with $170 million, and Maury County Public Schools will receive another $11.3 million for school food service, $1.78 million of the capital-projects appropriations, and $23.5 million of the $32.46 million the county has allocated to debt service.

County Commissioner Scott Sumners, chair of the county Budget Committee, explained in a social media post most of the schools’ funding comes from state Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) education grants. He noted 75 percent of county sales tax goes to schools, as well as half of the sales taxes from each of the three cities in Maury County. He expects schools will receive $31 million in sales taxes, compared to the county’s projected $1.6 million.

The General Fund will funnel its diverse revenues into $59 million worth of expenses, including emergency response, infrastructure, the courts, law enforcement, administration and record-keeping. The Highway Fund will pay out $13.2 million, with an additional $1.3 million for highway capital projects. Solid Waste received $6.1 million.

The county adopted a new certified, revenue-neutral property tax rate of $1.369 per $100 of assessed value, a 28-percent drop from the old rate of $1.91 per $100. Of those 137 property tax cents, 55 will go to the School Fund, 40 to the General Fund, 12.7 to debt service and 8 tax cents to capital projects.

The budget is projected to run at a deficit of $14.5 million over property tax revenue. Between budgeted revenue of $54 million and expenditures of $59 million, the General Fund’s reserves will fall by $4.86 million; other funds’ deficits will bring the county-side deficit to $6.18 million. The School Fund’s deficit is projected at $8.34 million. At the meeting where the budget was passed, County Commissioner Scott Sumners, chair of the Budget Committee, congratulated the county for bringing its side of the deficit down from $10 million.

“I expect that we will continue to overperform in our revenues and then not spend all of our expenditures,” Sumner told Main Street Maury, predicting another boom year for sales tax that will again exceed the county’s conservative revenue projections. “That is typical for our budgets[, but] I still want to get to where we have a true balanced budget.”

The county also divided just over $2 million among local nonprofits. Allocations included $1.8 million for the volunteer fire and rescue department; $70,000 for the Senior Citizens organization; $35,000 to the Spring Hill Library; $20,000 for the Boys & Girls Club; $17,510 for the Tennessee Rehab Center; $10,000 each for the Center of Hope and The Well Outreach; $9,000 for Keep Maury Beautiful; $8,000 for A Kid’s Place; $5,000 each for Harvest Share food bank, CASA, Students in Crisis and the Family Center; and $3,000 for the Mediation Center.

State Defers CPWS Loan (MSM)

The Tennessee Local Development Authority (TLDA) voted June 22 to defer a $75 million state loan application from Columbia Power & Water Systems, delaying a decision on funding for a $205 million water treatment plant that CPWS says must be built to avoid mandatory water restrictions in the next few years.

The plant would be capable of treating 12 million gallons per day (MGD) and is part of CPWS’s larger project, which is currently predicted to cost $540 million, to draw and treat sufficient water for its current and future customers. CPWS routinely draws more than 16 million of the 20 MGD its permit allows from the Duck River, and last August the utility used 93 percent of its permitted amount. Matt Wheeler, vice president at CPWS, warned that every month of delay adds $2 million to the cost of the overall project, and that utility is on track to having to restrict consumer water use by the summer of either 2028 or 2029.

“We’ve got risk on the table, right now there’s a whole host of risks to our existing water intake,” said Wheeler. “We’ve got to start now to meet our next potential peak demand in summer 2029. If we don’t get started in the next month or so, we will miss that summer of 2029 and [risk drought or limiting usage] another year.”

Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder also advocated for the state funding, noting that terms negotiated by CPWS and its consultants are on track to save the city $50 million in interest compared with market bond rates.

“This is truly a matter of life and death, having… clear, clean drinking water,” said Molder. “It is our belief that the Duck River Partnership will come back with the recommendation for this project, because it is the only project that is anywhere beyond a feasibility study… [and] it’s taken 15 years to get to this point.”

Vena Jones, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s program manager for loans, told the TLDA board the state Drinking Water Fund currently has $163 million available for projects of this kind. She said TDEC has worked on and now endorses the planning, financial modeling and necessity of CPWS’s project.

“We don’t know of another system in the state that is operating at such a level of demand… They have very, very little room for anything else. They could be in a position… to restrain folks from using water if they don’t get that plant,” Jones said. “I’m sure the governor’s report will support that expansion… [but] we expect that the plant capacity expansion has to occur regardless.”

Opposition to the loan

Opponents of the CPWS project submitted a letter to the TLDA board which they received a few hours before their meeting. The letter was written by Jason Gilliam, a board member of the Maury County Water System (MCWS), and its signatories included several Maury County commissioners; three members of the MCWS board; both Republican executive committee members for State Senate District 28; and state legislators Joey Hensley, Scott Cepicky, Kip Capley, Todd Warner, Clay Doggett and Chris Todd.

Gilliam, a prominent local advocate for rebuilding a dam on the Duck River in east Columbia, argued that CPWS’s intake project reflects a pattern of flawed planning.

“This CPWS project reveals a pattern of incomplete planning, shifting numbers, unacquired easements, potential legal challenges, negative environmental impacts, and a failure to adequately consider far cheaper and more collaborative regional alternatives,” Gilliam wrote.

Gilliam estimated that even under the favorable loan terms CPWS promotes, the total investment is an unreasonable cost for only 12 MGD of capacity, and he predicted that the 30-year loan term might even outlast the adequacy of the water supply.

“Maury County Water System, Spring Hill Water System and Mt. Pleasant Water System will experience the greatest impact since they all currently purchase water from CPWS,” Gilliam wrote. “This gives CPWS the distinct opportunity to control the water treatment and distribution, as well as growth throughout the county, putting every other utility at their mercy… Rate-payers, including those served by MCWS, Spring Hill and Mt. Pleasant, would bear the burden without meaningful input or representation.”

At the TLDA meeting, Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt said she would prefer to see the state create a regional utility commission, which would impose equal rates on city and county customers and pursue projects cooperatively. MCWS’s water rates are much higher than those of CPWS customers, which its leaders have attributed in the past to their large service area, much smaller customer base, and the fact that they have to purchase all their water. County leaders including Gilliam and Butt have complained that CPWS’s project will further raise their own rates.

“This is not just a Maury County problem. This is a statewide problem, and I hope you will see it as that, because eventually we’ve all got to quit competing and work together for all of the ratepayers,” Butt said. She also argued that it would be premature to approve the loan before the governor’s Duck River Watershed Planning Partnership (DRWPP) publishes its findings.

Gilliam also complained of what he called TDEC’s “inexplicable bias” toward CPWS’s project and against other water supply prospects. April Grippo, director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources, has spoken publicly in favor of the CPWS intake and against rebuilding the Columbia Dam.

TLDA board deliberations

The TLDA board, divided over the competing arguments, voted to take a month to hear each side’s case in full. While Secretary of State Tre Hargett said the board would benefit from a draft of the governor’s report, members agreed they could not wait for its September publication date to decide whether to lend Columbia $75 million.

“We have a stark disagreement between the city and the county, which is unfortunate… [The impact of a large utility project is] not what this board is accustomed to mitigating,” said State Comptroller Jason Mumpower. “[And] I’ve had folks say to me… that this is a fight about control of the development of Maury County… [because] whoever controls the water source, controls the long-term development.”

“It’s never been about control, it’s been about making sure that we have adequate water capacity… in the future,” Molder replied. “A value-added partnership [with Maury County Water]… is the way that it has always been, and they get it at very good rates, as do our other customers.”

At Mumpower’s prompting, Wheeler and Jones predicted the useful lifespans of each element of the project. The water treatment plant, Wheeler said, should last 50-100 years depending on maintenance and expansion. The 12 MGD capacity it provides should sustain the city about 35 years, based on CPWS’s growth projections.

After that, Wheeler said, the Duck River Watershed Planning Partnership (DRWPP) has talked about building upon CPWS’s work. In its November 2025 recommendations, the Partnership expressed interest in studying a pipeline that would take up where CPWS’s new intake ends, traveling about 35 additional miles to the Tennessee River, making that the new long-term water supply for the Duck River Watershed.

Anticipating the state may take a line to the Tennessee River, CPWS has left room to expand on the campus of the planned water treatment plant, and sought easements to Williamsport twice as wide as what they need for their single pipe, so that the state can drop a second line alongside it.

“This project doesn’t get ‘replaced’ by some project that is on review with the governor’s partnership, some future water source from another region,” Wheeler said. “It actually dovetails well with it. This project is a linchpin project for a future water source that would augment what we’re doing in Columbia and the county today.”

“I think in order to have a long-term solution, you have to have a short-term solution in place,” Molder said.”

Butt noted the DRWPP, on which she serves, is also examining other routes to the Tennessee River beyond the one that builds upon CPWS’s pipeline.

Gallatin Mayor Paige Brown, a TLDA board member, said, “There’s nothing that has been said that could potentially take [the water treatment plant] off the table. It’s going to cost what it’s going to cost.”

“The state… has a huge interest in this that overarches those of any county or city that’s involved,” said State Treasurer David Lillard. “A month or less than a month of delay is called for to understand these issues… because this is a huge [issue for perpetuity], as each of you have argued very eloquently and ably on both sides.”

“The future of utilities in Tennessee is regionalization,” Mumpower said.

Mayor Brown also pointed out while the local “water wars” described by Mayor Butt are indeed happening — Lillard corroborated from his experience as a Shelby County commissioner — and she herself supports regionalizing utility service. She noted, “There’s no way to force anyone to participate in a regionalization project without some deficiency that causes TDEC to interfere,” Brown advised the mayors of Columbia and Maury County. “You have to work collaboratively on these things… in a more positive direction.”

Ogles Hosts Labor Secretary in Maury (MSM)

Congressman Andy Ogles hosted acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling in Maury County for a tour of General Motors’ Spring Hill operations and a roundtable with local business leaders, GM officials, and community stakeholders at Columbia State Community College.

The roundtable focused on bolstering local manufacturing, expanding workforce development, strengthening technical training, and onshoring manufacturing jobs back to Tennessee.

Ogles and Sonderling toured both the General Motors vehicle assembly plant and electric battery plant, seeing firsthand how Tennessee workers are building the future of American manufacturing. General Motors employs more than 4,000 people in Tennessee and contributes $2 billion in direct GDP to the state, while continuing to invest in workforce development through apprenticeships, hands-on training, and technical upskilling.

“Tennessee is building the cars we drive every day,” said Congressman Ogles. “From vehicle assembly, futuristic propulsion, and fuel cell innovation, Tennessee is leading. I was proud to host Acting Secretary Sonderling to hear directly from Tennessee business leaders and innovators.

General Motors Assistant Plant Director Elizabeth Brown said, “It was a pleasure to welcome Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and Congressman Andy Ogles to Spring Hill and give them a firsthand look at the people and processes behind this plant. Our team is building the future of manufacturing here every day, including EVs and gas-powered vehicles under one roof. We appreciated the chance to talk about how internships, apprenticeships, and hands-on training can open the door to more careers in manufacturing.”

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

Cathy Elizabeth Garner, 75, a lifelong resident of Maury County, Tennessee, passed away peacefully on Saturday, July 4, 2026, at NHC Columbia HealthCare.

Funeral services will be conducted on Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home. Visitation with family and friends will be one hour prior to the service at the funeral home. Burial will follow in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hampshire. 

David Houston Harris, 72, a lifelong resident of Columbia, passed away peacefully at his home on Thursday, June 25, 2026.

Graveside services will be conducted on Sunday, July 12, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. at Pleasant Mount Cemetery.

Online condolences may be extended to the family at www.oakesandnichols.com.

Mrs. Bobbie Lou Collins Baker, 82, a longtime resident of Columbia, TN, passed away Thursday, June 25, 2026, at Poplar Estates. A graveside service will be conducted on Thursday, July 16 at 11:00 AM at Rose Hill Cemetery.

And now, news from around the state…

New Business Booming in State (Press Release)

New business filings in the 1st quarter of 2026 were the highest for a first quarter in the 33-year history of the data, according to the new Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report issued by Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s office. Tennessee also set an all-time record for annual reports filed in the quarter, showing that business resilience and creation remain exceptionally strong.

“Our state leaders work diligently to offer a welcoming business environment that supports jobs and opportunities,” said Secretary Hargett. “Tennessee’s recipe of lower taxes, light regulations, and responsible fiscal management is why people from across the country continue to move here.”

During the first quarter, 24,852 new entities filed in Tennessee, a 20.6% year-over-year increase. A high level of business filings typically leads to jobs, personal income, and state revenue growth. 241,706 entities filed annual reports in the quarter, a huge 30.4% year-over-year increase. Over the last 12 months, there were 84,893 new entity filings and 373,992 annual reports.

Davidson and Knox counties saw the largest number of filings in the third quarter, followed by Shelby and Hamilton counties. These four most-populous counties accounted for 42.6% of new filings statewide and grew collectively by 20.1%. Tennessee’s other 91 counties grew even faster with year-over-year growth of 21%.

The report also includes a feature on Tennessee’s population growth that increased nearly 64,000 in 2025 to reach 7.32 million people. Net domestic migration (people moving to Tennessee from other U.S. states minus people moving out of Tennessee) was the primary driver, but net international migration and natural growth (births minus deaths) also contributed.

Although Tennessee’s growth has returned to pre-pandemic norms, it remains strong. Tennessee had the 4th largest net domestic migration in the nation in 2025, and the 5th largest as a share of its population. Davidson County saw the largest increase, and 81 of the state’s 95 counties gained population.

“The entrepreneurial spirit in Tennessee really shines through in this record-breaking level of both new entity and annual report filings,” said Dr. Don Bruce, Director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research. “It shows that our state continues to be a hot spot for new businesses, which, in turn, creates more jobs and a stronger tax base—all good things to increase the quality of life for Tennesseans.”

This report provides a snapshot of the state’s economy based on key indicators, including new business data from the Secretary of State’s Division of Business and Charitable Organizations. It is published through a partnership with the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research and the Secretary of State.

To review the complete Q1 2026 Tennessee Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report and past reports, visit sos.tn.gov.

Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)

The Andrew Jackson Foundation, which owns and operates The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s historic home and Presidential site, announced its upcoming schedule of summer events. 

Saturday, July 11, 10 a.m. — Stars, Stripes, and Strikes will be a full day of celebrating American cultures and traditions across the grounds. Guests can enjoy watching a vintage baseball tournament from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and a live concert that starts at noon. There will be other forms of entertainment, including crafts, games, face painting, an American history trivia booth, a pie-eating contest, and more. 

Saturday, July 25, 6 p.m. — From Screen to Stage: An Evening with P.T. Barnum: This special Living History event blends modern film and historical context for an unforgettable evening of learning. This two-part event will kick off with a screening of director Michael Gracey’s 2017 film The Greatest Showman, which stars Hugh Jackman as famous entertainer and businessman P.T. Barnum. The movie will be introduced with a brief explanation of the historical context, and popcorn will be served during the film. Afterward, actor Niell Hartley will provide an in-person portrayal of P.T. Barnum, engaging the audience with further information about his life, career, controversies, and cultural impact, and creating a more interactive experience with the topic. Purchase tickets and find more information here.

Learn more by visiting www.thehermitage.com.