Colorado City Schools Set to be Returned to Local Control; AG's Office Sits on Fraud Investigation
 
By Ray Stern in News
Phoenix New Times
Phoenix News Blog
Warren Jeffs

Texas authorities last year released pictures of former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs making out with underage girls.
 
Image: John Dougherty
Alvin Barlow

Alvin Barlow, former Colorado City Unified School District Superintendent, has somehow managed to avoid criminal indictment.

The Arizona Board of Education is set to return the Colorado City Unified School District to local control -- that control being by a bunch of polygamist inbreds.

The corruption and financial mismanagement of the school district was unearthed six years ago by the tenacious reporting of former New Times reporter John Dougherty and resulted in a state audit and investigation. The audit backed up Dougherty's findings, like the purchase of an unneeded $200,000 airplane, and the state put the district in receivership.

Now, according to the Associated Press, everything's just peachy. And that criminal investigation? It apparently went nowhere. Thanks, Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Sure, Fundamentalist Mormon cult leader Warren Jeffs is in jail, accused of arranging marriages and, most recently, raping girls.

But is the basic power structure the same in Colorado City? Without an ark-load of indictments, we'd have to guess "yes."
 
blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com
Originally published October 26, 2009
 
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