This week a new newspaper was presented to Sandy Oaks residents. This one calls itself the “Sandy Oaks Gazette.”
In reality, the Gazette is just a new name for the Sandy Oaks Chronicle, which first came out in August. In its first issue, the newspaper had a 2 page spread calling itself a “voter’s guide” for the city council election. The problem, however, is that the 2 page “voter’s guide” was missing almost half the candidates. The only ones included where those who were part of SOPAC. To make matters worse, the newspaper claimed that it had invited all candidates to participate when in fact the other candidates had never been contacted.
It is not known who officially owns the Chronicle/Gazette, but all evidence points to Art Martinez de Vara. Emmanuel Delfin is the editor-in-chief of Martinez De Vara’s other newspaper, the Von Ormy Star. Martinez de Vara, adviser to SOPAC, authored articles in the Chronicle along with Pedro Orduno, a member of SOPAC.
The Sandy Oaks Chronicle apparently decided to change its name to the Sandy Oaks Gazette for its second issue. Perhaps it is because they foolishly published the newspaper and included the web domain SandOaksChroicle.com on the cover without actually buying the web domain first. Now someone else owns the domain and the only content on it is 2 short paragraphs mentioning Pedro Orduno and accusing him of lying. The ownership of the website is not known at this time.
In this new issue of the Gazette Emmanuel Delfin doesn’t allow a straight out lie like he did in his first issue. However, he conveniently leaves out important facts and over-glorifies realities. On the front page is an article titled “City Council Sets Zero Property Tax Rate” and it is accurate in its description. However, the “staff writer” who authored the article conveniently leaves out the fact that Jim Clement pushed for a property tax that would have doubled what people currently pay on property tax. The article also leaves out that the budget was not created by the mayor, but by the city attorney, Art Martinez de Vara, who penned in a nice salary of $36,000. Nor does the article mention that the city council accidentally passed a retroactive tax that would have forced residents to pay for all of 2014, even before the city incorporated.
Last but not least, Emmanuel Delfin, as editor in chief, included with the article a picture of the city council captioned “City Council Debates The City Rate and Budget.” The picture, however, is of an earlier meeting which is evident by the clothes worn and the way tables were set up.
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