To Jesse Williams, Executive Director of the Marfa Housing Authority,
In response to the blog post you posted on the Marfa Housing Authority/Marfa Property Management website, criticizing an article from The Big Bend Sentinel about resident allegations re: the property you manage, we would like to ask why emails, calls to your office and calls to your cell phone requesting your input for this story were not returned?
In your blog post you encourage us to “feel free to reach out.” We (both Mary Cantrell and Rob D’Amico) did and heard nothing back. We also tried to reach your nonprofit’s board members, but there is no list posted and records from 2022 filed with the state included someone who had died and others we could not reach. We did talk with one board member who did not know anything about the situation. Another never responded.
We never publish allegations or accusations without first seeking comment, and the other side of the story, from the individual or entity in question.
The Sentinel first reached out to you on April 1, 2025, giving you plenty of time to respond to the article published on April 10, 2025. Your input and comments on the resident allegations — which you outline only after the fact in a blog post — was purposely and repeatedly sought out, yet you decided not to offer us your side of the story.
Requests to John “Juan” Lara were also made and were not returned.
So, if you wished to have certain facts shared and your points made, why did you repeatedly ignore us when given the opportunity to talk? Only to then accuse us of bias?
While we understand that social media posts to local groups should be taken with a grain of salt, we have every right to look into a potential situation or complaint that may surface on social media. We spoke to the resident that first went public with her complaints, another resident, the police chief and more sources that declined to speak on the record.
Given the seriousness of the accusations, we felt it was important to look into this situation and hear the MHA residents out. Your blog post fails to address one of the major issues brought forth in The Sentinel article, which is: why was the resident’s car towed by Lara if it met legal requirements?
Why is it that Marfa Property Management is a nonprofit corporation, yet we could not locate a list of all of your current board members or copies of your 990s?
While you technically are a public nonprofit corporation (Marfa Property Management LLC), your articles of incorporation state that you are subject to the state’s Open Meetings Act and Public Information Act. Have you ever posted a board meeting anywhere? Even if you are not subject to those acts, you — as a nonprofit — still are mandated by state law to provide certain financial records for public inspection.
Why have you failed to acknowledge that you have received a public information request from The Sentinel — which asked for copies of complaints against Lara, a list of salaries for all employees and other financial records, among other requests — on April 8, 2025?
Regarding your questioning of the logic of some residents stating they are scared to complain and that nothing has resulted from their complaints, this shouldn’t be so hard for you to understand. Both could be true. Fear of retaliation for speaking up is real in small towns, and others who do try to speak up often get frustrated by feeling “no one will do anything.”
There is no need to attempt to belittle and talk down to us with unprofessional comments, calling us “inexperienced” and stating that you’d be happy to walk us through “how adults verify facts.” We both have journalism degrees, and years of reporting experience.
The article includes the words “accusations,” and “claims,” understood as not concrete facts, “some residents” understood as not the experience of everyone. Again, why didn’t you return repeated requests for comment from us to review your side of the story?
We hope you will be more responsive to us regarding future Marfa Housing Authority stories — as you wrote in the blog post you’d be “happy to” help us improve our articles with your input. We look forward to your response to our public records request dated April 8, 2025.
Finally, we find it odd that your assessment of our reporting is buried on your website and then shared on Facebook by someone who has now blocked us. We have no idea where it may also have been shared. A standard practice is to email us so that we can address your concerns — not running them around a small circle of people.
Link to Williams April 12 blog post on MHA website: https://www.marfaha.com/post/dear-the-sentinel-you-dropped-this-it-s-called-integrity
Link to a subsequent MHA statement on April 16: https://www.marfaha.com/post/public-statement-from-the-marfa-housing-authority
Link to The Sentinel original story: https://bigbendsentinel.com/2025/04/09/residents-raise-issues-with-marfa-housing-authority/
