Oak Hill

OAK HILL -- There's a new sheriff in town, but for how long?

NSBNews.net photos by Henry Frederick / Embattled Police Chief Diane Young stands in the back of the meeting room while the city commission vote to shut down the police department in favor of coverage by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

NEWS ALERT: Oak Hill commissioners voted 3-2 to immediately shut down the police department after an intense one-hour discussion about embattled Police Chief Diane Young and the issue of marijuana plants found on Mayor Mary Lee Cook's property and whether the chief had something to do with it.

City Clerk Administrator Laura Goodearly was fired. As of 7:15 p.m. Oak Hill was officially under the direction of the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

NSBNEWS.net file photo / Oak Hill City Attorney is shown here in one of his final in-person appearances in March at a City Commission hearing. 

OAK HILL -- Pennywise and pound foolish: That has been the situation with Oak Hill's unique arrangement with City Attorney Scott Simpson since early spring where he's been accessible through Skype on the computer or by phone or often lately, not available at all.

But Simpson will be there in the flesh for tonight's special meeting regarding alleged corruption in the police department.

NSBNews.net photo illustration by Sera Frederick 

OAK HILL -- Talk about the pot calling the kettle black: In a shocking turn of events, NSBNews.net has learned that embattled Police Chief Diane Young -- whose past use of cocaine and marijuana is well chronicled -- was the driving force behind Sheriff's narcotics investigators showing up at 84-year-old Mary Lee Cook's house last month to confront her about marijuana plants on her property.

Young had denied any involvement in the episode in media interviews, including NSBNews.net, which broke the story Monday night. The mayor was not charged and the marijuana plants were destroyed, but what remains a mystery is how they got there in the first place.

OAK HILL -- Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook's insistence that marijuana plants were placed on her property to frame her was reported in 181 media outlets nationwide Wednesday, two days after NSBNews.net broke the story live from Monday night's City Commission meeting.

NSBNews.net file photo of Oak Hill Police Chief Diane Young

OAK HILL -- The Florida Department of Law Enforcement acknowledged for the first time that it has the Oak Hill Police Department on its investigative radar.

"We've received some information as it relates to the police department and we're looking into it," FDLE spokeswoman Heather Smith told NSBNews.net.

Smith declined to get into specifics except to say things are in the preliminary stages that "may or may not be criminal" in the small police force led by embattled Police Chief Diane Young, whose reinstatement of Sgt. Manuel Perez a week ago today after has been met with skepticism from some city officials and residents alike.

 NSBNews.net file photo of Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook

OAK HILL -- Mayor Mary Lee Cook wasted no time at tonight's meeting acknowledging Volusia County Sheriff's deputies confiscated marijuana plants on her property, but denied ownership and added she was set up by someone out to embarrass her.

"There would be criminal charges and I'd have to resign," the Oak Hill mayor said, declining to identify who her nemesis might be.

"They knew thay had an ace in the hole to force me to resign," she said, reading from a prepared statement at the beginning of the Monday commission meeting. "I'm fed up with this."

Cook claimed there were half dozen or so sickly-looking marijuana plants on her property and that the deputies destroyed them and told her they received an anonymous tip that the mayor was growing pot.

OAK HILL -- When a Jacksonville Beach cop pulled over Laura Goodearly for suspicion of DUI, he "immediately detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her breath which she became stronger as she spoke."