INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: A Law-Breaker for Oak Hill Law-Maker?

Oak Hill, Tennessee
by The Oak Hill Tennessee Gazette

Law-breakers usually don't win elections.  Heidi Pflaum is trying to buck that trend in this year's Oak Hill election.

Heidi Pflaum has a checkered legal past.  Her hopes for election are pinned on a last-minute name change.  Although her legal name is "Heidi Marie Pflaum," Heidi is now running under the assumed name "Campbell."

Our investigation reveals that Heidi "Campbell" worked as an unlicensed contractor on property in Oak Hill at 926 Otter Creek Road.  That is a violation of Tennessee law, a charge that has been reported to the District Attorney for investigation.

Heidi also operates an illegal septic tank that drains her sewage into Radnor Lake.  If Heidi had connected to Metro Sewer her sewage would go to the Metro treatment station.  But Heidi did not want to pay for a sewer connection.  Instead, Heidi chose to put her sewage in the ground behind her house, in an old septic tank that pollutes the environmentally critical Radnor Lake.  Click to read our full INVESTIGATIVE REPORT.

Heidi's law-breaking continued when she moved into an unfinished Oak Hill house without getting a certificate of occupancy.  There had not been any final safety inspection.  She was cited twice to court for violating zoning laws, but she didn't bother to show up.

This is not the first time law-breakers have been involved in the Oak Hill government.  In 2007, the Oak Hill Gazette was the first to break the story of the criminal past of the Oak Hill City Manager.  The City Manager had a felony conviction in California that he successfully hid for years.  Even after the Oak Hill Gazette reported the crime the city kept him on until 2008, when the pressure finally became too great and he was forced out.  But having a criminal involved in the city government gave Oak Hill a black eye for years.

Why would Oak Hill again put itself through the turmoil of having law-breakers in city government?  Will Heidi's strategy of hiding her past be successful, like the former Oak Hill City Manager was for so many years?  That's the question Oak Hill voters will have to decide.