The Arizona Attorney General’s Office reported the sentencing of a Glendale man who serves as the city’s planning commission chair to two concurrent terms of probation.

The AG’s office on Tuesday announced that Vernal Lee “Vern” Crow was sentenced May 24 after he was convicted on two counts of conflict of interest in connection with his appointed position as vice chairman of the Arizona School Facilities Board.

Crow was charged in an indictment handed down on Nov. 9, 2021, that he failed to disclose his interest and his son’s interest in a business named Red Tree Consulting LLC while participating in three SFB decisions that benefitted that business. 

In a plea agreement entered on April 20, Crow admitted to knowingly failing to disclose his association with Red Tree Consulting and not recusing himself when he voted on March 2, 2016, for an award of $111,800 in taxpayer funds for replacement piping at Taylor Elementary School in the Snowflake Unified School District, according to the AG's office. Red Tree Consulting was paid $12,050 of those funds.

Crow also admitted to knowingly failing to disclose his son’s association with Red Tree Consulting and not recusing himself when he voted on Sept. 6, 2017, for an award of $623,600 in taxpayer funds for roof replacement at the Desert Winds Learning Center School in the Casa Grande Union High School District, according to the Arizona Attorney General's office. Red Tree Consulting was paid $42,200.00 of those funds.

Crow was appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Glendale Planning Commission on Jan. 11 of this year, and his term expires Jan. 31, 2024. As a condition of his sentence, Crow was required to notify Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps of the conviction, and filed proof of that notice with the court on June 1.

Phelps on Tuesday declined to comment.

The planning commission’s role is to analyze, review and make recommendations to the city council regarding land use and development-related issues. The body holds public hearings regarding these issues.

The case arose in part from a performance special audit of the SFB by the Arizona Auditor General’s Office (#19-105), which was submitted to the Arizona Legislature in June 2019. The indictment covered three individual items benefitting Red Tree Consulting, which were voted on by the SFB in March 2016, September 2017, and November 2017, while Crow served on the board.

These were three of 62 matters identified by the investigation where Crow was required to make a record of his recusal and his or his son’s association with the business, but no records show he did that, the AG's office says.

In the three charged votes, Crow himself moved for the passage of the agenda item that benefitted Red Tree Consulting. Crow failed to make the disclosure required by law of his association or his son’s association with Red Tree Consulting from the business’ founding in 2015 until speaking to the auditors in February of 2019.

Crow no longer serves on the SFB, but he has been an investigator for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office General Investigations Unit for seven years.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson prosecuted the case.

This case was investigated by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office Special Investigations Section.

A copy of Crow’s plea agreement is available here.