Ariz. board approves schools takeover from secluded polygamist community

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 · Last updated 8:51 a.m. PT

Ariz. board approves schools takeover

By PAUL DAVENPORT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

MESA, Ariz. -- The state Board of Education approved the financial takeover of a fiscally troubled school district that serves a secluded polygamist community.

The board voted 8-1 Monday to approve a settlement between the Colorado City Unified School District and the state to immediately place the district under the financial oversight of a receiver.

The district's mismanagement resulted in a $2 million debt, according to the state's receivership petition. The district purchased an airplane worth nearly $200,000, and teachers went without pay for two months last year.

Under a consent agreement approved by the board, the district's superintendent and business manager will step down by Dec. 31. It will continue to use an outside financial consultant until an outside receiver submits a financial improvement plan to the state board.

"The infrastructure is there now to right the ship," Attorney General Terry Goddard said.

The district initially fought the takeover, saying many of its money problems were the result of circumstances outside its control. But it agreed last week to be placed in receivership.



Matthew Wright, an attorney for the school district, said system officials agreed to the takeover in part because they did not want to risk interruption of students' education. He said key administrators also said they would invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if asked to testify during a receivership hearing.

While the receiver's powers center on financial matters, board members received assurances that they would receive reports on the district's educational situation as well.

The district's board members remain in charge of educational policy matters, though the five-member board now has two vacancies, Goddard said.

Colorado City in northern Arizona and neighboring Hildale, Utah, are controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that practices polygamy and broke away from the Mormon church.

Arizona has decertified two Colorado City police officers because they practice polygamy. In Utah, the state attorney general this year obtained a court order removing fugitive church leader Warren Jeffs and other church officials from management of the trust that holds the church's real estate assets.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Polygamy_School_District.html

Child rapist is.

The girls in these communities are married off around age 13, usually to a man who could be their grandfather (and in some cases is, by marriage). Only a few of the older leaders are allowed to have multiple wives, leaving the younger men with no available women to marry. Generally, they're kicked out of the community, with no money, no skills, and a bare education.

Government action is long overdue.

There aren't enough families to have a viable gene pool to begin with, and when you start adding in polygyny (because it's only polygamy when women can have multiple husbands, too) the gene pool reduces to a gene puddle.

I'm really glad AZ and UT are finally getting off their asses on this. I guess it only took a NYT best seller, a long series of articles in various alternative papers and multiple episodes of Dr. Phil and others to get this going.... :sarcasm:

Where's Dr. Phil when we need him to expose Bush?

but these crimes are not prosecuted. You are correct. I saw a good TV segment agout this - believe it was 20/20 or Primetime - that showed all these teenage boys living in towns surrounding a cult community. They were kicked out for small & often made up infractions. There were over a 100 of them. No girls were ever kicked out. These cultist should be arrested, but then again poligamy is ok in the bible :)

I believe it was, someone did try to prosecute, but he lost his reelection bid as a result. No one has been brave enough to do so since.

Good job, Arizona. You did something right for the first time in years!!!