Corruption allegations in Oak Hill systemic: Police chief and city clerk lead the way

For the past eight months, NSBNews.net has been looking into allegations of corruption in the Oak Hill Police Department. Our investigation now shows the situation goes far beyond the police department to include municipal government itself. It is systemic with Police Chief Diane Young, and her history of cocaine abuse, and City Clerk Administrator Laura Goodearly, with her DUI conviction, leading the way.

Not only is the corruption from within, but there has been a fierce attempt to keep the media from gaining access to public records, primarily by Goodearly and to a slightly lesser extent, Young.

For example, Sgt. Manuel Perez was put back on duty Monday morning following a three-plus month paid suspension on charges of stealing gas from the city pump and improperly accessing people's driver's license information.

NSBNews.net demanded the summaries of those two IA reports a week ago today from Police Chief Diane Young and City Clerk/Administrator Laura Goodearly. Those requests have not been satisfied, even as Young told the City Commission on Monday that the investigations were completed. In the past few months, NSBNews.net has had to resort to getting public records through the commissioners. Even this time, that hasn't worked because they don't have copies either.

Slow to react to any of this is the commission itself, which has the distinction of being Volusia County's only elected body where the majority isn't even elected. Only Mary Lee Cook, recently appointed mayor, and Linda Hyatt, are serving based on being voted into office by the citizens of Oak Hill.

Kathy Bittle won election through the electorate her first term, but was re-seated because she had no opposition. Engele was seated when incumbent Bill Marcello pulled out of a re-election bid and Gibson was appointed in the spring to fill the seat vacated by Mayor Darla Lauer who abruptly resigned.

NSBNews.net was getting so close to the "dirty little secrets" officials were desperately trying to keep under wraps, NSBNews.net was thrown out of a public meeting only to receive an open apology from the mayor weeks later and even attempts to have us moved to the back of the meeting hall in attending meetings.

None of that has worked and now NSBNews.net, which has stood alone among the media in investigating alleged corruption in Oak Hill, has the unique opportunity of providing absolutely shocking details on the dirty little secrets that have made this tiny city, Florida's new Windemere.

The print media and TV news stations will be on the Oak Hill scandal like the sharks feeding on bait fish in the South Jetty, but they will all be following the lead of NSBNews.net.

Over the next several days, the top slot on the home page will be devoted exclusively to our ongoing investigation: "Oak Hill Cops: Cocaine, Corruption and Chaos."

The secondary investigation is dubbed: "Oak Hill's Dirty Little Secrets."