DeBary mayor lied about college degree in city applications

DEBARY, Fla. — DeBary Mayor Clint Johnson is once again under fire.

The city’s youngest mayor recently took heat for calling City Council members jerks, members of the public attending meetings the peanut gallery and some individuals trolls. Now he’s facing questions about his education.

While applying to serve on the city’s planning and zoning commission in 2012, Johnson wrote in his application that he graduated from Stetson University in 2006. He listed the same information in a 2014 application for temporary City Council member. Both applications were submitted prior to his election as mayor.

“I don't have a degree,” Johnson said. “Never really cared to have a degree.”

Stetson University said Johnson took business classes but never graduated from the school.

Johnson said he wrote down the year that he stopped attending classes, not when he graduated.

“That's when I left the school,” Johnson said. “The day I graduated was the last day I went to school, and that was in 2006.”

Johnson said critics are targeting him to create controversy.

A City Council member challenged Johnson about his credentials last week when the mayor was censured for name-calling.

Johnson landed the unpaid job on the planning and zoning commission, but he said his education didn't help him.

“Only five people applied and five people got the spots,” he said. “I could've put on there that I'm a monkey from space and I would've gotten the job.”

The mayor accuses a former city staffer who was fired for changing the type of degree listed in an application of creating controversy even though Johnson admits he has no proof of that.

During his campaign, Johnson said he never told voters that he's a college graduate.

WFTV