Compromised With Power
Shocking new revelations on the eve of San Benito’s biggest festival.
We already told you that City Manager Fred Sandoval was doling out contracts to his drinking buddies, but now we learn he is deep in debt, accused of financial misconduct before he was ever hired. It’s all a recipe for possible public corruption. Sandoval is COMPROMISED WITH POWER.
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“Okay. I’m going to tell you guys, it went good and we’re here. We’re excited? And I believe we are united to move forward in San Benito. And we have a gentleman here. Thank you guys,” said mayor Ricardo Guerra.
San Benito’s mayor is all excited… look behind him… there’s a sign with a blown-up version of the city manager’s face.
On Facebook… politicians and some city employees showed their support by holding up more fat heads of Freddy after the meeting.
The commission insulted its taxpayers by refusing to answer allegations Sandoval is clearly funneling entertainment contracts to his long-time friends without competitive proposals…
The contracts are a matter of public record…
But we’re glad the mayor is excited… wonder if he is excited to learn that just five days before that town meeting…
Sandoval agreed to pay personally $ 300,000 for cheating the Sylvan Learning Center.
He owned Sylvan’s franchise in McAllen before getting the San Benito job.
Or maybe the commission does know and didn’t care when they hired Sandoval that their manager was being sued by Sylvanlearning for stealing from them.
Exhibits in the Sylvan Learning Center lawsuit… are public record…
Accusing the San Benito city manager of hiding $1.6 six million of revenue dollars in assets…
Sandoval had opened the Sylvan franchise in McAllen… and was making a living off of the federal US Department of Education idea grants… popular with Valley school districts.
A Sylvan audit uncovered Sandoval’s deception.
“Motion to move to enter agreement with Mr. Fred Sandoval with terms discussed in execution.”
The controversial city manager was hired by San Benito in October 2023… and when he was hired he was facing a criminal case too… for assault…
The case was dismissed after Sandoval took an anger management class.
Maybe he needs to take another a refresher course… remember when Sandoval lost it when we asked him when he was moving to San Benito?
Sandoval: “Never.”
Sandoval later apologized to the commission and promised to move. He was now in love with San Benito.
“I love San Benito. I love San Benito.”
But surveillance we did in late January proves he hadn’t… the mayor and commissioners just let him violate the charter.
Sandoval is now using the city’s Facebook page to call me names… a clout chaser… just looking for fame in the Rio Grande Valley…
An out-of-town blogger… peddling noise. Ooh that stings…
But when Sandoval lost his cool another time, he knew exactly what I did for a living.
“You’re an investigative reporter, why don’t you investigate the facts? Why don’t you do that?”
And that… Freddy… is exactly what we’ve been doing here in our Houston headquarters… and you know what we’ve found now?
You’re not just handing out government contracts to your drinking buddies…
It turns out Mr. Sandoval is deep in debt… never a good thing for a public official running a city.
Public records from the secretary of state show Sandoval created a company called Renryder in 2015 to run his Sylvan learning center…
Right after he resigned as city manager of Pharr, Texas.
Sandoval’s company, Renryder, borrowed more than two million dollars…
He signed a $650,000 promissory note with Educate South Texas.
According to court records he never paid it… I’m sure the folks in San Benito saw Sandoval is now getting sued by them.
It’s easy to find on Hidalgo County court records.
Sandoval had a much bigger loan… $1.4 million from the small business administration.
U.S. taxpayers loaned him money…
Public records show Sandoval cheating us taxpayers too.
Records tell another interesting story.
In August of 2020… the bank that financed the SBA loan told Sandoval he was in default…
He had stopped paying… and owed nearly 1.1 million dollars (1,096,000).
In early 2021… Sandoval sued the bank in Hidalgo County Court at law number 2…
Trying to stop the bank from foreclosing on two properties Sandoval had used to secure the loans. It didn’t work…
The property on North Flag Street was eventually taken from Sandoval and he agreed to pay a federal judgment of over a million dollars.
The Texas Secretary of State records also show Sandoval amassed $430,000 in federal tax liens.
We do not know if he still has them… but the timing shows Sandoval got in real money trouble with the government early in the COVID crisis… when kids weren’t going to school.
That’s curious…
Maybe Sandoval should sympathize with the developers of the Resaca Village Shopping Center who blame delays on COVID-19… but he hasn’t.
The city has ignored judges’ orders to let them finish… spending tax money on appeals.
The company told us the city of San Benito has lost a quarter of a million dollars in sales tax revenue while the final building rots.
That’s some smart governing… so is deciding to spend millions on a concert venue at the fairgrounds without putting the contracts out for bid.
The city doesn’t want us and thus you to see if we even got bids for the resaca festival…
At the last meeting, the city approved another contract with Sandovals’ long-time friend Roy Garcia.
Demolition at the fairgrounds to prepare for the music mecca Sandoval envisions.
Carpe Nox Industries was organized by Raul Garcia…
Court records show he’s been sued multiple times for fraud.
Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez was one of the people used as references when Sandoval submitted his resume for the job in San Benito.
Dolcefino Media: “So did the city of San Benito ever call you and ask for a reference when they hired him?”
Cortez: “No.”
We got a reaction to the court judgments showing Sandoval is up to $1.3 million in debt.
“But now all of this is revelations to me, I didn’t have any idea about that,” Cortez added.
Maybe that’s why Sandoval can’t sell his homestead in Pharr… and actually move to the town he represents.
Sandoval had references from three high-profile public officials on his application… including Rudy Corona… who is on the San Benito school board.
“Wow, I did not know that. Thank you for informing me,” he told us.
Corona says in fact… he only met Freddy once in his entire life.
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about him because I don’t much about him.”
Dolcefino Media: “Okay so I’m going to guess, did the city of San Benito ever call saying you were one of his references?”
Rudy Corona: “No, man, no.”
With that trail of financial problems… cheating Sylvan… another company and federal taxpayers… how could Sandoval get a new loan on a new one?
“Wow this is serious stuff and certainly I was unaware of any of that,” Corona said.
Of course, thanks to San Benito… Sandoval is making about a quarter of a million dollars a year.
He’s been the executive director of the San Benito Economic Development Corporation since October of 2023… his formal contract began on January 18.
A week later this guy was made an attorney for the EDC.
Michael Pruneda… he’s the lawyer who tried to block us from seeing EDC financial records for months…
“Wayne Dolcefino, I’m not going take any questions.”
We met Pruneda last May… he was trying to help the EDC lawyer evict Varco from the Resaca Village department. He lost.
He was also fighting us.
“We asked for the EDC ledger and you won’t give it to us. Doesn’t the public have a right to know this stuff? What are you hiding?”
But we’ve now discovered a real conflict of interest for Pruneda…
Turns out when Pruneda got hired he was the long-time personal attorney for Fred Sandoval.
He was the lawyer in Sandoval’s fight with Sylvan Learning Center.
And Sylvan’s lawsuit calls Pruneda out for helping Sandoval breach his contract.
I wonder if Pruneda mentioned that when he got hired in San Benito.
Pruneda is making $5,000 a month as the EDC general counsel.
But he’s been one of the main lawyers in that increasingly expensive shopping center fight with Varco…
The Pruneda Law Firm has billed the EDC over $100,000 so far…
The firm made 152,000 from the EDC total… one of the biggest bills they have.
Was the Pruneda contract a reward for helping Sandoval when he was in so much money trouble?
Something else that should have been made public by Sandoval…
“There’s a fundamental meeting about public services that fuels the us versus them mentality.”
Mayor Guerra, commissioner Goodman, and commissioner Morales are on the EDC board of directors…
They obviously support Sandoval’s decision to hide his text messages… despite our threat to sue to get them.
“Thank you, Mr. Sandoval, I know you don’t have a lot of time running the city of San Benito.”
We don’t know how yet much San Benito taxpayers paid for this slick new video hailing Sandoval… or who wrote the script… but it’s becoming clear his plans will have a big price tag with city funds.
Potentially millions on that fairgrounds concert venue… but Sandoval leaked his bigger plans for that area too.
“It’s going to be a retail… a huge retail profit center with an amphitheater as an anchor,” he explained.
Taxpayers should know whose been asked to submit proposals… I’m no developer.
But if there are only 20 planned concerts a year how will retail survive when the music isn’t playing?
Why isn’t the city commission and EDC talking about this giant project in detail… to the people who will pay for it all?
Financial records the EDC has finally released after months of law breaking show the city is still wasting tens of thousands of dollars a year in tax money in the wake of the failed epicenter deal.
Another planned entertainment mecca surrounding a hotel and convention center that never happened.
Isn’t all of this the kind of thing a private developer should be working on with their money…?
Oh, wait a minute… the city has ignored multiple judges’ orders to stop interfering with the only other big developer who tried to build something nice in San Benito in the last 5 years… more than $100,000 in tax money gone to lawyers instead of infrastructure…
That’s real smart San Benito.
Sandoval’s puff piece on Facebook allowed taxpayers to comment.
Sorry, damage has already been done…
That was even before we reported Sandoval was compromised with power…
Maybe our next report should be called delusional with power…
Because the hits they keep coming.
