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Law enforcement calls for city inquiry

Residents say authorities’ launching an investigation into Yankeetown city officials’ actions is “vindication.”

By ELENA LESLEY
Published June 21, 2006

YANKEETOWN — For the past few months, residents who worried about alleged corruption in Yankeetown heard the same thing:
No one cares much about what’s going on in a woodsy Levy County town of 600.

Turns out the naysayers were wrong. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced Tuesday that it has opened an official investigation in Yankeetown.

“Hallelujah!” some residents said as word spread through town Wednesday morning.

“It’s about time,” said Eddy Oesterle, who is embroiled in a lawsuit with developers who want to build a resort hotel on the Withlacoochee River, a proposal that has turned Yankeetown into a battleground. “This is a vindication, definitely.”

The FDLE began sniffing around in late May, after receiving numerous phone calls and letters from residents.

Earlier that month, Michael Peters, a Branford resident who has property under contract in Yankeetown, drove a thick stack of town documents to the FDLE and governor’s office in Tallahassee.

He included petitions from around 50 residents calling for a criminal investigation.

“I won’t sleep until people are arrested or indicted,” he said Wednesday. “I’m dancing on top of cloud nine.”

In late May, some residents also had written a letter to the governor, pleading for an investigation “into the actions of our mayor, former mayor, majority of our Town Council, former council, current & former zoning officer(s), & group of developers that have been continuing in what we believe to be an illegal manner, possibly a criminal conspiracy.”

During their initial interviews and research, FDLE agents searched for any evidence that might warrant an official investigation. By Tuesday, they’d found it.

Proceeding with the inquiry means “there might have been something inappropriate,” said Sharon Gogerty, a public information officer with the FDLE.

In addition to accusations made against town officials, agents had initially reviewed alleged threats made against officials. The department will not be investigating that element of the Yankeetown controversy.

Agents from the FDLE have been a relatively constant presence in Yankeetown over the last month, causing a stir when they removed several computers from Town Hall for inspection.

Then on Monday, residents turned over public documents to the agents, some shredded, that they said the mayor and others had thrown out in the town recycling dumpster.

Mayor Joanne Johannesson, the subject of a recall by many townspeople who think she’s too close to the developers, did not return phone calls for this article.

Karen Goode, who has fought the development, said she was excited to get word of the investigation, but upset by what the in-fighting had done to Yankeetown.

“It’s sad to see what’s happened to town government — it’s in shambles,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of time and hopefully this will heal in the end.”

The investigation will be conducted by agents from the FDLE’s Gainesville Office.

It is not their job to “determine whether or not criminal activity was committed,” Gogerty said. When the investigation is complete, evidence will be turned over to the State Attorney’s Office to make that decision.

There is no time line for the investigation.
That’s okay with most involved in this fight. Regardless of how long it takes, they’re just glad to finally be noticed.

“This whole thing is like digging in a giant septic tank,” Peters said. “First you’ve got to get the lid off.”

Elena Lesley can be reached at 564-3627 or elesley@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 21, 2006, 18:01:58]