The Daily Newspaper of the Upper Cumberland Herald-Citizen www.herald-citizen.com Early Voting Lady Bees play in interns tournament Sample ballot inside today Coalition helps students Pages A8-9 Cane Creek: Page E1 Page A9 116th Year | No. 71 | sunday, March 25, 2018 | Cookeville, Tennessee $1.50 Correction TTU trustees hike parking, housing costs BY KATE COOK lage/inner campus permits will go up $7.50 The headline on Fri- [email protected] per year. Outer campus permits will go up day’s story about the $9 per year. Tennessee Tech Board of Tennessee Tech’s Board of Trustees offi- In other matters, the board voted on a Trustees meeting was cially approved a housing rate increase and new student representative. misleading. a 10-year parking funding plan at its regular Forrest Allard, a junior honors student The headline should meeting Thursday. double-majoring in accounting and econom- have read “Internal in- The board approved a three-percent in- ics from Monterey, was elected to a one- vestigation chief topic at crease in housing rates. year term. The student representative can TTU board.” The parking funding plan will increase participate in discussions but not vote. We apologize for the parking fees each year for the next 10 years. The board also officially approved the hir- error. Inner campus and residential parking Forrest Allard permits will go up $15 per year. Tech Vil- See TTU, Page A2 Student representative TVA asks for More SROs rate increase March for Our Lives comments could cost BY LAURA MILITANA [email protected] half million The Tennessee Valley Au- thority wants to hear from BY JIM HERRIN electric customers on its pro- [email protected] posed rate change. Even though it would re- A proposal to provide School portedly be revenue neutral Resource Officers (SROs) in every for TVA, it will have an im- Putnam County school could end pact on customers’ wallets. up costing nearly $500,000. The proposed rate change That’s the estimate provided by will move costs from the in- Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Far- dustrial class onto the com- ris, who has said that having mercial and residential SROs in every school is one of his classes, which will result in goals. those customers having to “We consider the lives of stu- pay more for the electricity dents to be the most important re- they use. source that we have,” Farris said TVA provides energy for in announcing his plan last week. business customers and local “They are our future. It is high power distributors serving priority for us and will remain more than 9 million people in so.” parts of seven southeastern But the sheriff said the plan will states, including Cookeville have a significant cost, noting that Electric, Upper Cumberland 11 more SROs would be needed to Electric Corporation and provide an officer for all of the ele- Volunteer Energy Coopera- mentary schools. tive. “The total salary for the 11 The TVA says the rate SROs needed will be $423,500 a change would revise the year, but this does not include structure of wholesale elec- benefits, vehicles, uniforms or tric power rates to better equipment,” he said. align wholesale rates with Most of that funding would the underlying costs to serve have to come from the county. the 154 local power compa- “The governor is talking about Laura Militana | Herald-Citizen nies who serve TVA’s service SRO grant money for one year,” territory. As proposed, the Debbie Bates, Jason Brown and Katie Rodgers hold signs during the Farris said. “So, if that becomes a standard service energy rate “March for Our Lives” protest on the Putnam Courthouse Square Saturday possibility, it would only cover the as a part of a nationwide effort to encourage gun control in the wake of a See TVA, Page A2 deadly school shooting in Florida. See SRO, Page A2 Candidates for governor to speak at sold-out dinner BY LINDSAY McREYNOLDS confirmed that they will attend the re- [email protected] gional dinner in Algood. Each is expected to speak for about All five Republican candidates for 10 minutes. governor are expected to speak at the Tennessee Republican Party Chair- Upper Cumberland Reagan Day Din- man Scott Golden will emcee the ner Thursday at Trinity Church in Al- event, and an auction will also be held good. to raise funds for the campaigns of Re- “We’ve sold out. We’re going to have publican candidates. to turn people away I’m afraid,” said In addition to candidates for gover- Lee Black Harwell White Boyd John Keisling, chairman of the Pickett nor, other attendees will include Sen. County Republican Party. Paul Bailey, Rep. Ryan Williams, Sen. Agriculture Commissioner John Rose parties in Putnam as well as Pickett, Republican candidates for governor Mark Pody and Rep. Kelly Keisling and and former judge Bob Corlew. Clay, Overton, Fentress, Jackson and Bill Lee, Diane Black, Randy Boyd, 6th Congressional District candidates The Upper Cumberland Reagan Day Beth Harwell and Kay White have all Rep. Judd Matheny, former Tennessee Dinner this year includes Republican See GOP, Page A2 Index Obituaries, A7 JOin the ChaMber 6 Sections — 46 Pages Betty Mott Clyde Parks Jr. Businesses that Abby C3 Opinion A4 Susan Pangle Mary Naylor sign up this Calendar A10 Schools B1 Carolyn Fristoe Rose Bilbrey week get special Classified D1 Sports E1 Lawrence Welch Claudean Wilson Comics F1 Sudoku B5 James Lollar James Wheeler Jr. deals Community C1 Weather A2 Walter Wallace Page A5 Crossword B5 A2 — HERALD-CITIZEN, Cookeville, Tenn. — www.herald-citizen.com — Sunday, March 25, 2018 LOCAL READER Bills moving through General Assembly SERVICES BY KATE COOK impact in an election year, has The House Criminal Justice move all state funding from [email protected] sailed through the process with Committee should discuss the clinics that provide abortions. little fanfare. bill in the coming weeks. The bill requires the TennCare Contact us: Some noteworthy bills have Two bills are related to med- Another bill would allow vot- director to apply for a waiver Address: moved through the state’s Gen- ical marijuana. ers to direct the legislature on from the federal government. 1300 Neal St. eral Assembly. The first, sponsored by Rep. the subject of medical mari- If they get it, the state will be A measure regarding social Jeremy Faison, has been juana. able to remove state funding Cookeville, Tenn. media accounts and paid ads rewritten. Faison told regional HB2391 would place the fol- from TennCare clinics that pro- has been approved by the Sen- media he rewrote the bill hop- lowing question on the Novem- mote or support abortion. Mailing Address: ate. ing it passes. As written now, ber ballot: “Should the Finally, both the House and P.O. Box 2729 The house will vote on the the bill would allow residents Tennessee legislature approve Senate have approved a bill re- bill on Monday. to get a prescription from an the use of medical marijuana?” quiring the words “In God We Cookeville TN 38502 The bill SB1635, requires po- out-of-state doctor for mari- Both House and Senate com- Trust” to be displayed in public litical accounts and ads on so- juana if they have one of 15 dif- mittees will discuss that meas- schools. cial media to state who paid for ferent conditions. Those ure this week. Both of those bills are now Phone: 931-526-9715 those accounts and ads. conditions cover a variety of In other matters, both the headed to Gov. Bill Haslam’s Fax: 931-526-1209 The bill, which could have problems from cancer to PTSD. House and Senate voted to re- desk for his approval or veto. Email: News [email protected] Sports County plans year-round hazardous waste disposal [email protected] Advertising BY JIM HERRIN Porter also recommended [email protected] [email protected] that the Jackson Street site be Living used for the future location of [email protected] Putnam County residents a manned convenience center Circulation will be able to dispose of haz- for county residents to drop off [email protected] ardous wastes all year long, their trash. He said the county Business News rather than just on special col- could pay the estimated [email protected] lection days, thanks to a $130,000 for that phase of the Church News $480,000 grant the county has project as part of their annual [email protected] received. capital outlay budget. School News “When it comes to haz- Porter also suggested part- [email protected] ardous waste — paint, cleaners nering with the city to central- Classified Ads and all the things that get left ize the disposal of brush at the [email protected] over in a household sometimes site in a potential third phase — we really don’t have any of the project. place to take it,” said County “I really like the idea of hav- Letter Guidelines Executive Randy Porter. ing all three in the same loca- He said the state has usually tion,” said Solid Waste All letters to the editor must sponsored a hazardous waste Committee member Kim Brad- be signed and include the collection event about once a ford. writer’s name, address and year at the county fairgrounds Jim Herrin | Herald-Citizen The committee voted unani- phone number. Letters are which allows residents to dis- mously to recommend going subject to editing and/or re- The city of Cookeville’s brush storage site will soon be the pose of those items, but resi- forward with all three phases.