MNPS and NES Depress
💥 NES and MNPS fight over who is most incompetent · Brass robbers in Joelton · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. Today, revisiting a reflection on what could have been in Hartsville, TN... MNPS and NES both display ineptness that will depress you... Thieves stripped brass off urns in a Joelton cemetery... And much more!
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From the Archive: A small Tennessee town's forgotten history as a nuclear leader
Hartsville, Tennessee is a small town nestled in the hills overlooking the Cumberland River about an hour north of Nashville. It sits just beyond the bustling bedroom communities that encircle Davidson County. The most action you’re likely to see on the road to Hartsville is turkey buzzards making a roadside picnic out of unlucky deer on the shoulder of State Route 25. But if you look in the right place, there’s a silent giant on the hillside.
It’s the 535-foot-tall cooling tower of the abortive Hartsville Nuclear Plant. The quiet Middle Tennessee town was once party to a brilliant dream, it's now a ghost of the promise that man’s mastery of the atom would usher all of humanity into a new age of prosperity.
Today, the town stagnates under the weight of the same economic hardships that plague so many small communities in the South, but it was supposed to be different for Hartsville. The abandoned nuclear facility now sits next to the Trousdale-Turner Correctional Facility, a private prison where inmates in the yard can look up at the tower like medieval poets gazing upon Roman aqueducts, wondering just what giants wrought such wonders.
✹ METRO COUNCIL WATCH
New Council Watch Features We've added additional features to Council Watch. In addition to who's funding your council member, you can now see how they vote and who they vote with most frequently. (Take a Look)
🎓 Spain Puts the Screws on MNPS Councilmember Jason Spain didn’t mince words after MNPS board member Berthena Nabaa-McKinney complained about the forthcoming performance audit pencilled into the recent budget. The city’s budget set aside $800,000 for the audit, requiring MNPS to come up with $550,000 of the total. To accommodate the cost, the board scrapped a planned fifth MNPS pre-K site at Hillwood Early Learning Center.
In an interview with the Banner, Spain said of the decision to cut the pre-K facility, “It’s concerning that they couldn’t find a way to find less than four hundredths of 1 percent of their budget without impacting services to students, and that’s sort of the point of the audit,” he said. “I think pre-K is a good use of those funds. … I know they place a great emphasis on supporting their employees, and that’s incredibly important. They had other options available to them.”
Spain also brought attention to the $6.5 million legal settlement with former MNPS employees accusing director Adrienne Battle of retaliatory punishment, a payout the board approved with little pushback. “They didn’t raise an eyebrow at [the legal settlement] and apparently found a way to pay for that without impacting services to students,” Spain said.
⚡ The Winter Storm Fern postmortem is out and NES didn't come out looking good. The 133-page PA Consulting review found no damage prediction model, an emergency response plan sized for 50,000 customers that faced nearly five times that, a tree-trimming backlog that contributed to outages, and no estimated restoration times for the first seven days. Earlier action on outside crews could have cut restoration by two to five days. Relatedly, Mayor O'Connell nominated attorney Jaz Boon to replace outgoing board chair Anne Davis.
HEADLINES
- ⚰️ Thieves stripped brass vases from more than 40 graves at a Joelton cemetery. Someone hit Joelton Hills Memory Gardens overnight on June 16-17, pulling brass vases off grave markers, apparently for scrap metal at roughly $1.50 a pound, and leaving only the flowers behind. Replacement costs range from $70 to $700 per vase; the cemetery says it's the first incident of its kind there and is cooperating with Metro Police, who have added extra patrols. (NewsChannel 5)
- 📊 Tennessee's TCAP scores are up across the board — and now exceed pre-pandemic levels. New results show statewide ELA proficiency at 42% (up from 35% pre-pandemic and a pandemic low of 29%) and math at 41% (up from 37% and a low of 25%), with social studies proficiency jumping 11.4 points to 50%. TennesseeCAN Executive Director Chelsea Crawford credited the gains to staying the course: "meaningful progress is possible when leaders stay relentlessly focused on measurable student learning... when we stay focused on academics, students win." (TennesseeCAN)
- 🏫 Williamson County Schools superintendent resigns eight days after getting only a one-year contract extension. Jason Golden stepped down this week without citing a specific reason, though board members publicly blamed infighting, and one called out "toxic elements" on the board for whatever comes next. Golden, who drew fire from conservatives for his handling of COVID mask mandates and Biden-era Title IX guidance, has accepted a finance and legal services role at Franklin Special District starting August 7. (Tennessee Conservative)
DEVELOPMENT
- Grand Ole Opry House Up For Sale by Owner Ryman Hospitality (Bloomberg)
- East Nashville’s Hot Ticket Promises Dancing, Local Programming (Scene)
- Future NFL stadium to offer Bluebird Cafe satellite business (Post)
- Downtown property sells for $7.27M (Post)
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎻 Dolly Parton's Threads: My Songs in Symphony @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 11a & 6p, $49, Info
🎸 Superdrag @ Eastside Bowl, 8p, $35+, Info
🎸 Falco & Brook Play Garcia @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info
🎙️ A Summer Soirée with Allison Young & The Accords @ The Blue Room, 7p, $19, Info
🪕 65 North Pickers @ The Basement, 7p, $19.78, Info
🎸 Bellamy Brothers @ Ryman Auditorium, 7p, $120, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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