THE DUMP — JUNE 27, 2025
Your weekly look into the weird, the wild, and Williamson County
Welcome back to The Dump — your weekly look into the weird, the wild, and Williamson County, where the tax rate takes six tries, the developers bring PowerPoint game, and the state line might just be your best defense against a records request.
This week: Franklin tries to raise money without raising eyebrows, California learns we don’t hand over PDFs to just anyone, and a “preserved” country road may get a very modern farewell. Plus, a gut-punch federal case reminds us: the system isn’t broken — it’s wide open.
Crack a cold one. We’re going in.
Let’s dump it out.
📍 THE TAX RATE THAT BROKE THE BOARD: SIX VOTES, ONE FICTIONAL HOUSE, AND ZERO SELF-AWARENESS
“You need five to set the rate,” said City Administrator Eric Stuckey.
And with that, Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen began its descent into a slow-motion policy car crash dressed up like compromise.
Tuesday night’s meeting had everything: repetitive votes, disappearing logic, pretend math, and a tax rate that only passed after everyone agreed to support a number they had already rejected — twice.
The final number, 29.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, split the difference between the city’s original 32-cent recommendation and Alderman Patrick Baggett’s 28.6-cent proposal, which he introduced to avoid taxing residents for state infrastructure that didn’t exist. Specifically, Mack Hatcher Parkway Northwest, a project the Tennessee Department of Transportation hasn’t even committed to funding.
“Two months ago, was going to be used for Mack Hatcher Northwest, is how this budget was originally developed with that,” Baggett said. “And then it goes into these other projects. And I know this board would spend it wisely, but I think the public would like to see that list.”
His amendment passed 4–3. But before anyone could pack up their water bottles and go home, Stuckey stopped the show. “To set a tax rate, you need a majority of the board to vote for it. Four is not a majority of the board. You need five to set the rate.”
With Alderman Matt Brown absent, the meeting was trapped in a math problem. And no one brought a calculator.
What followed was legislative improv. They tried 29.6. Failed. Tried 30. Failed. 32? Nope. 29.6 again. Still no. At one point, someone even floated the idea of calling Brown to break the tie. (They couldn’t.)
Alderman Clyde Barnhill, championing the full 32 cents, argued the city had plenty of unfunded projects to spend the extra pennies on. “You had enough stuff on that screen up there to cover those two or three cents,” he said.
Then, in a moment of fiscal theater, Barnhill reached for relatability and offered up his signature line: “If I had a $400,000 house the difference on what I’m supporting and what you’re supporting would be... you’d only be taxed on a fourth of that which would be $100,000. You would be taxed on $30 a year.”
Let’s pause — the real math is $34. And more importantly, show us the $400,000 house, Clyde. Because unless it’s a doghouse in Berry Farms, it doesn’t exist. The average Franklin home price is over $900,000. Barnhill’s example is less budget policy and more historic reenactment.
Throughout the night, Baggett, Barnhill, and Alderman Beverly Berger offered repeated assurances that “good people can disagree.” Baggett said, “Good people with reasonable logic will disagree with me, and that’s okay.” Berger said, “Again, reasonable people can disagree, can agree to disagree.” Barnhill added, “That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s right. It just means that I just disagree with you.” Which was code for: “I’m about to vote for the same number I just voted against.”
Finally, after nearly three hours of civic staring contests and procedural ping-pong, Baggett blinked. “If Alderman Barnhill will vote for the 0.296 — if you’ll vote for it, I’ll vote for it.” Which was basically the legislative version of “Fine, but only if you go first.”
It passed 5–2.
Barnhill, Baggett, Berger, Vice Mayor Jason Potts, and Alderman Greg Caesar voted yes. Aldermen Brandy Blanton and Ann Peterson voted no.
And just like that, the rate they all said they couldn’t support became the one they all could.
The budget’s funded. The deadline’s met. The hotel/motel tax is floating somewhere between committee and make-believe.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
Franklin has a tax rate.
The budget is done.
Mack Hatcher isn’t.
And Clyde still thinks $400,000 buys you a house here.
📍 CALIFORNIA WANTS OUR RECORDS. WILLIAMSON COUNTY SAYS: “LOL NO.”
Well, it finally happened. Williamson County is being sued for doing exactly what it does best: telling outsiders to get lost in legalese.
This time, the person on the outside is Eugene Volokh, a legal scholar from California (because of course), who tried to request some court records related to a political dust-up here in the land of Sweet Tea and Closed Meetings™. The County Clerk pointed him to the Archives. The Archives asked for his Tennessee ID. He didn’t have one. And that was the end of that.
According to this week’s Nashville Banner, Volokh filed a federal lawsuit saying Tennessee’s public records law violates the First Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Apparently, he stumbled onto a Court of Appeals ruling, got curious, and decided he needed the trial court file to make sense of it all. You know, for “research.” (That’s how it always starts.)
In his own words:
“Now I want the trial court decision, and they’re not giving it to me,” he told the Banner. “Of course, I’m trying to make a point here…”
Oh, are you now?
Tennessee’s “residents-only” rule has been around for a while, and it’s nothing new to legal nerds. Virginia had a similar law that went to the Supreme Court, and the Court basically said: look, sunshine laws are nice, but not every FOIA request is a constitutional right.
Volokh says this case is different because it involves court records, and because, well, he’s really into constitutional nuance.
We’re not saying he’s wrong. We’re just saying: welcome to Williamson County, Professor.
You’re gonna want to bring snacks.
And maybe a good VPN.
Also worth noting: last year, even the Beacon Center and Americans for Prosperity said this law was kinda dumb.
When they’re asking for more transparency, you know it’s not just hippies from Santa Monica making a fuss.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
We don’t have a dog in this fight. Could be that a non-resident academic is poking where he shouldn’t. Could be that our local records system is a labyrinth guarded by price-per-page goblins.
Honestly? Probably a little of both.
We’re just here for the spectacle. Because there’s nothing more Williamson County than watching two sides lawyer up over whether anyone should be allowed to see what’s behind the curtain.
Let’s all gather ‘round and see what the judge says.
Unless, of course, the ruling is redacted. For nonresidents. For reasons.
📍 “WELCOME TO HARLIN PUD: WHERE YOUR LAND IS OUR LAND”
Oh, you thought we were done talking about BOMA? Let’s talk about Hillview Lane — the tree-canopied, historic, two-lane road where the deer frolic, the turkeys do turkey stuff, and the neighbors wave.
Well, kiss that goodbye. The developers are coming, and with them, a perfectly planned community — the kind that looks like The Truman Show and drives like Cool Springs at 5 p.m. And standing proudly behind this expansion plan? Franklin's own municipal bulldozer in a blazer, Assistant City Administrator Vernon Gerth — a man who’s never seen a rural easement he didn’t think should be "condemned" for the greater good (of course).
Let’s be clear: when Vernon says "condemnation", he doesn’t mean emotional disappointment. He means eminent domain. He means we’ll take your land, widen your road, and stick a sidewalk through your azaleas. And if you resist, don't worry — he brought PowerPoint.
Boyle’s reps — the developers — showed up to BOMA and made their pitch:
• 70% open space!
• Traffic improvements!
• A lovely walking trail next to the doomed tree canopy they swear they’ll “preserve”!
The only thing more expansive than their master plan was their use of the word “preserve,” which seems to mean “level gently with a bulldozer.”
Meanwhile, residents showed up and asked a simple question:
Why are we being forced to bear the burden of a development we don’t want, on a road that was never meant to carry commuter traffic from Columbia to Cool Springs?
Answer: because someone somewhere thinks it makes “mobility sense.” (Translation: If we build it, your commute will come. With screaming.)
Boyle claims it’ll only add “100 cars” at peak hours.
Let’s say that’s true. (It isn’t.) Add those 100 cars to Mack Hatcher, which already groans like a haunted house during rush hour, and you’ve got gridlock from Henpeck to a panic attack.
Every new home is one more car bound for I-65. And no, they won’t politely queue on Columbia Pike — they’ll scream down Henpeck (through two school zones), flood through Sullivan Farms, jam up Lewisburg, and turn Royal Oaks into a stress test for your brakes and your sanity.
Mayor Ken Moore, in a moment of transparency, said it best: “Roads take eight to ten years to build.”
Let’s do the math: Harlin gets built in the next 3–5. The roads won’t be ready until 2035 — if ever. So we’re approving development now, knowing full well we can’t handle the traffic for a decade.
WW BOTTOM LINE:
This isn’t smart growth — it’s planned disruption.
And when Vernon Gerth says “we’re exploring condemnation,” what he really means is: “we’re bringing asphalt, and a legal team.”
You can’t save Hillview Lane by talking nicely. You save it by raising hell and reminding this city that historic roads aren’t just scenic detours on the way to a developer’s balance sheet.
🪦 BUNGANUT PIG OINKS ITS LAST
Well, it finally happened. After nearly four decades of burgers, beer, and bologna, The Bunganut Pig has officially shuffled off this culinary coil.
Locals knew it. You could feel it in the air — or maybe that was just the fryer vent. But when the Pig’s iconic patio sat empty this spring, week after rainy week, the writing was on the wall. Or perhaps scribbled onto a damp napkin behind the bar.
Owner Mark Rindermann blamed the rain — too many soggy weekends, not enough patio traffic. “We just ran out of money,” he said.
Opened in 1986 across from the Carter House, The Pig became a fixture: a rambling two-story oddity with pub food downstairs, pool tables and darts up top, and a shaded patio out back where memories — and occasionally marriages — were made. It was beloved, filthy, and unmistakably Franklin. But not even “Zane’s Big Fried Bologna” could save it.
Yes, Zane Martin — Franklin’s apparent bologna ambassador — had a sandwich named after him. “It’s a Franklin jewel,” he said. Now it’s just another story locals tell over beers somewhere else.
The Pig once made it onto Tennessee Crossroads. Today, it might make it onto Zillow. In its final years, the charm faded, the music got quieter, and the grime got harder to ignore. The spirit lingered, but the upkeep didn’t.
So what’s next for the old haunt on Columbia Ave? A boutique taco shop with an $18 margarita? A slushie bar? Maybe. But the bones are good. And that basement still wants to be a British pub (and so do we).
WW BOTTOM LINE:
The Pig is gone. Long oink the Pig.
Another local classic, done in by weather, rent, and a town that remembers too late.
Got a favorite watering hole still hanging on? Go. Sit. Tip heavy. Order the weird thing named after the regular.
🚽 FINAL FLUSH: THE FRANKLIN FALLOUT
We prefer to laugh at dysfunction. Not this time.
Because what happened in Franklin wasn’t just criminal — it was catastrophic.
Camilo Campos-Hurtado was a fixture in Franklin — a familiar face on the sidelines, a trusted youth soccer coach, a man who appeared, for years, to belong.
But it was all a lie.
He wasn’t a coach.
He was a predator.
And he wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
This month, Campos-Hurtado pleaded guilty to a slate of federal charges that read like a roadmap to institutional collapse: four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, possession and receipt of child sexual abuse material, and fake immigration documents. Prosecutors say he groomed and exploited children under his care between 2017 and 2021 — and that he did it while living in Franklin as an undocumented immigrant using fake IDs.
He now faces a minimum of 15 years in federal prison, followed by deportation to Mexico. But the sentence doesn’t erase the fact that our systems — local, state, and federal — allowed him to thrive here unchecked.
This was preventable.
Campos-Hurtado wasn’t invisible. He didn’t slip through the cracks.
He walked straight through the front door.
Armed with fraudulent documents and no legal right to be here, he was still allowed to coach children in one of the wealthiest, safest communities in Tennessee.
He wasn't hiding in shadows — he was trusted.
And while he embedded himself into the lives of families, producing and hoarding images of child sexual abuse, not one safeguard stopped him.
Not immigration checks.
Not background screenings.
Not oversight from the organizations that put him in front of kids.
And still — even now — you won’t hear a word of accountability from the advocacy groups that spend their time fighting every effort to enforce the law.
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) has spent years suing the state over immigration enforcement, calling ICE cooperation a threat to “community trust.” Their allies claim that requiring lawful documentation is “dehumanizing,” that local police should look the other way, and that laws penalizing those who shelter undocumented immigrants are dangerous.
What’s dangerous is what just happened in Franklin.
What’s dangerous is telling an entire state that “inclusion” means giving a child predator the benefit of the doubt.
Campos-Hurtado is going to prison.
But the people who created the culture that protected him — the nonprofits, the litigators, the local officials who stayed quiet — they won’t be held to account.
They’ll go back to lobbying for the next sanctuary bill, the next legal shield, the next way to ensure no one gets deported — no matter what they’ve done, or what they’re capable of.
And when someone asks why we need ID checks, or why local law enforcement should work with ICE, or why background screening should be more than a box-checking exercise?
This is why.
Because the cost of getting it wrong is not theoretical.
It’s not political.
It’s kids.
Franklin isn’t a border town.
We’re not a sanctuary city.
But it happened here anyway — because we let policy drift into theater, and let ideology override common sense.
Camilo Campos-Hurtado wasn’t a victim of circumstance.
He was the result of one.
And the next time someone tells you that enforcement is cruel, or that vetting is racist, or that “we just want to help,” you remember this case.
You remember Franklin.
And you make damn sure it doesn’t happen again.
🎆We’re off next Friday for the 4th of July — but don’t worry, we’ll be blowing stuff up before the fireworks.
Until then, raise a fried bologna in honor of The Pig, plant a “Save Hillview” sign in the yard, and remember: five votes gets you a tax rate, but only one Vernon Gerth gets you a sidewalk through your petunias.
Stay cool, Williamson.
See y’all soon.
— WW