🗞️ THE DUMP — January 30, 2026
YOUR WEEKLY LOOK AT THE WEIRD, THE WILD, AND WILLIAMSON COUNTY
Welcome, neighbor. If your trees are upright, the limbs are stacked at the curb, and your house has stopped sounding like it’s settling into a sinkhole, congratulations — you survived another Williamson County ice excursion.
It’s been a week.
This is your look at the weird, the wild, and Williamson County, and yes — this one’s a little shorter than usual — blame the power outages and the fact that half the county has been living off cellular hotspots. Still, there are a few tidbits worth your time.
This week we’ve got a tale of two power grids, a familiar political figure “considering” something very loudly, a Franklin annexation kicking into high gear, and a final pause to acknowledge something rare these days — progress.
Grab a chair. Or a chainsaw. Let’s dump it out.
⚡ POWERED UP… OR PACKING UP
The ice is melting. Driveways are clearing. The bread-and-milk racket is winding down. And for a good portion of Williamson County, the worst leftover is a pile of limbs and a microwave clock that thinks it’s Tuesday.
But for others? The storm didn’t end. It just stayed.
Let’s start where things largely worked.
Across much of Williamson County, Middle Tennessee Electric took a wallop and then did what you pray your power company does when winter gets ornery. Crews went to work around the clock, more than 600 linemen strong — many from out of state — grinding through the cold to get lights back on. Outages dropped steadily, and by midweek Franklin itself was down to just “handfuls” — a far cry from the chaos of the weekend.
Inside Franklin city limits, same theme: early prep paid off. City crews worked 12-hour shifts clearing roads, treating icy streets, and hauling away fallen trees. Police reported residents largely heeded warnings to stay off the roads. Streets, Urban Forestry, and Water Management teams cleared nearly 30 major sites and repaired multiple water main breaks, while EMA warming centers dutifully did their job for whoever needed them.
It’s the kind of competence you want when ice is involved.
Unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.
In Brentwood and other pockets served by Nashville Electric Service, thousands of residents were still sitting in the dark nearly a week later. The Williamson Herald reported that more than 1,800 NES customers in Brentwood alone remained without power as of Thursday morning — some after receiving false restoration notices due to an automated system error. Imagine getting that text.
The human side has been raw. One Concord Forest resident wrote, “Pipes are now freezing and bursting… Water heaters are busting. Please don’t forget about us.” A Foxboro Estates resident warned that downed power lines have been “laying untouched in the neighborhood since Sunday,” some hanging halfway across roads.
Brentwood leaders didn’t dodge it. Mayor Nelson Andrews acknowledged the hardship — noting even his own father remains without power — saying, “I don’t really think I will feel good about any of it until we have power restored to our last home in Brentwood.” He emphasized that while the city doesn’t control NES, officials “still feel responsible for advocating for our people.”
Nearby Belle Meade guidance was even starker: secure homes, shut off water, and prepare to stay elsewhere — possibly for weeks — due to snapped poles and restoration priorities favoring denser areas.
Same ice. Radically different outcomes.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
Storm response isn’t graded on effort — it’s graded on results. This week made one thing clear: infrastructure, planning, and leadership matter long before the first flake falls.
NES, overseen by leadership appointed through Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s administration, didn’t inspire much confidence this time around. And more than a few folks in Williamson County are probably looking around right now and wondering: “Why do we end up with NES instead of MTE?”
Fair question.
🔥 ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER CADE
Like a moth to a porch light, Cade Cothren is back for more — not with that $80,000 check, but with something different — filing paperwork in hand.
Cothren has officially pulled qualifying papers for a run for the Tennessee House. He is, allegedly, still “prayerfully considering,” which is the civic equivalent of stepping into the shallow end and announcing you’re “thinking about swimming.” But paperwork doesn’t pull itself.
Cothren continues to frame the moment as a righteous stand against shadowy “insiders” and “Nashville power brokers,” which is an interesting angle from a man whose career was built inside the Speaker’s office — though the commitment to narrative consistency is impressive.
For anyone in need of a refresher: Cothren is the former top aide to ex-Speaker Glen Casada, resigned amid scandal, later convicted on federal corruption charges, and ultimately pardoned by Donald Trump. The legal slate was wiped clean. Public memory? Less so.
There is also the small matter of an unresolved civil penalty from the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance — with a deadline — but for now the headline is narrower. Cothren isn’t filing yet. He’s circling — again.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
Whether this turns into a filed petition, a qualified candidacy, or just another chapter in the long-running “considering my next step” genre remains to be seen. But as of this week, the papers are pulled — and “Matt Phoenix” is fluttering, once again, dangerously close to the flame.
🚜 OVER THE HILL(VIEW) LANE AGAIN 😏
Alright, back over on Hillview Lane, where Franklin is once again turning an annexation into a family reunion gone sideways — everybody’s got an opinion, and nobody’s leaving happy.
At January’s Planning Commission meeting, the City tackled the 80-acre Ingram parcel just south of Hillview Lane, west of Columbia Pike. Three agenda items, one big ask: adopt a plan of services, annex it into the city limits, and zone it Agricultural with hillside protections. Orderly enough, right?
The meeting itself? Not so much.
Hillview neighbor Rob Dodson wasn’t buying the setup. “You can’t provide police or fire service to this property because you can’t get to this property.”
And later dropped the hammer: “To say they want to do this for estate planning purposes is laughable. It is laughable.”
Janet Curtis followed without sugarcoat. “For an underdeveloped 80-acre parcel with no current development plans, what independent justification exists for annexing it now beyond creating connectivity for the non-contiguous Harlin property.”
Rounding out public comment, resident Goodspeed warned, “The strategy risks violating Tennessee law — annexing solely to create proximity resembles prohibited corridor or strip annexations scrutinized by the Tennessee courts in 1980 in Collier v. City of Pigeon Forge.”
The applicant’s representative, Greg Gamble, countered that the family already owns significant land inside city limits, wants everything under one jurisdiction, and has no imminent development plans for this tract. Agriculture stays agriculture. All stays the same, and sewer may come later — if ever.
In the end, legal context was offered, while heads nodded. Then the votes rolled in: unanimous — ayes across the board.
All three items. Straight to BOMA.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
Hillview Lane is nowhere near resolution — but a few nails were hammered into the record. The “new neighbor” is headed downtown, and the objections are now preserved. Now the Board of Mayor and Aldermen takes the seat at the head of the table.
So, what say you, friend — legit family business, or the slickest end-around since the backdoor screen pass?
🙏 FINAL FLUSH: PERSPECTIVE GOES A LONG WAY
As we close out Tennessee’s School Board Appreciation Week, it feels appropriate to pause and take stock. Where have we been? And how did we get here?
Because a few years ago, serving on the Williamson County School Board was about as close to a civic endurance trial as this county has ever produced. Mildly put, the meetings were pressure cookers. The room was always full, the mood predictably tense. Speakers were rationed, and a gavel was infamously weaponized. Every sentence landed like it might end up on national television before bedtime.
There was anger then. A lot of it — matched only by fear. Politics masqueraded as certainty, certainty hardened into angst, and more than a few times board members — understandably human — let slip some version of “I didn’t sign up for this,” which is never exactly what a room full of parents wants to hear from the people who, ironically, signed up for this.
Some of that was the time. And yes, some was self-inflicted.
Emails were tallied like electoral votes. Parents who actually showed up were treated as inconveniences at best — labeled “domestic terrorists” at worst. Thank you, Biden administration. And we all remember the supporting cast: advocacy groups, professional outrage merchants, and the occasional procession of white-coated “experts” who arrived dressed for political theater more than medical discussion. It was absurd… and none of it aged well.
But it was, undeniably, an impossible moment to govern. The ground was shifting, the rules — and the metrics — kept changing, and every decision felt existential. It was a trying time for literally everyone.
Now look around.
The meetings are still attended — but the primetime mob scenes are gone. People still come to speak, and they’re allowed to finish their sentences without a gavel racing the final syllable. Board members disagree, usually without posturing. Parents disagree, usually without detonating.
Work is getting done. There’s no national spotlight and zero presidential condemnations. Williamson County has exited the center ring of America’s cultural cage match.
The board from that era is largely gone, and frankly, that’s probably for the best. The loudest voices from those nights now find themselves on the outside, arguing different battles — from the same ideological footing. Time has a way of sorting things out like that.
What remains is a school board that operates with steadiness, listens to parents, and understands that leadership doesn’t require theatrics to be effective.
So yes — regardless of where you stood during the Covid years, regardless of your politics or your scars — there is something to appreciate here.
Peace in the room doesn’t mean everyone agrees — it means the community learned how to stay in the room together. And we should be grateful for the calmer room.
Because if you don’t look back, you can’t fully appreciate progress. And right now, that progress is worth a sincere thank-you.
Williamson County School Board, you are appreciated.
Thanks for reading and sticking with us through a week that tested patience and more than a few water lines. If nothing else, this week reminded us that local decisions — and the systems behind them — matter long before anyone’s checking outage maps.
We’ll be back next week.
Stay warm, Williamson.
