Take Community Impact News coverage with a grain of salt.

Community Impact or Distract News? You decide.

We sent the following letter to Community Impact News (CIN) on January 6, 2025, about biased coverage of the local battle -- as we see it -- between an abuse of power by 3 of 5 Bastrop City Council members, led by John Kirkland and with help from the City Manager, Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino. CIN's answer on January 13 did not address these concerns, so we are printing our letter and theirs below in hopes that this might convince you to take Community Impact News coverage with a grain of salt.

This is especially important as we get into the local election happening on May 3.

To Community Impact News from Linda Curtis for LIV: I represent the League of Independent Voters of Texas (LIV), a 501c4 nonprofit, nonpartisan membership association for non-aligned voters. Since 2013, we have worked across parties and ideologies for open government, protection of land and water resources, and to make growth pay for itself in Central Texas.

I am contacting you in hopes that we can speak as soon as possible about the concerns we have with your local news reporting in the Bastrop community.

Last March, I spoke with CIN writer Jane Turchi, about her article asserting “A financial audit by Haynie & Company found about $70,000 of public funds approved by Susan Smith, Visit Bastrop’s former CEO, lacked proper documentation between 2021-23.” I believe this article lent credibility to a false innuendo woven by the City Manager (Sylvia Carrillo) with a city council majority (3 of 5 voting members) to dislodge, harass and recall a political opponent, Mayor Lyle Nelson. 

A recall petition was filed in July 2024 using this innuendo before an investigation was completed. 

On September 10th, the District Attorney’s office issued a no-bill of Susan Smith. It reported there was no reason to investigate Nelson. CIN failed to report this breaking news. Instead, we did so at LIV News with “Breaking News: Bastrop Recaller’s House of Cards in Collapse, no bill no charges, no case.”

On October 17, a CIN article by Amanda Cutshall, “Recall election still expected, despite Bastrop Mayor's lawsuit against city secretary,” contained a timeline about the recall petition. The DA’s breaking news of a no-bill is missing from the timeline. The petition is being challenged but CIN has yet to report precisely why Nelson contends that required “affidavits of the truth of the petition for each page” were not filed. See our report Nelson Finally Filed Suit on Recall. 

A Special Meeting on November 21st was called by the City Manager for her own performance review and stacked with 100+ of her supporters called together by Bastrop County Conservatives and a leader of the local Democratic Party who ran in the last election against Nelson.

Amanda Cutshall’s alarming December 4th report of this meeting was so deficient, two days later we published our own report. Cutshall utterly failed to report what is on the video. Instead of “cheers” as she reported, officials (Nelson and Council Member Cheryl Lee) were jeered, harassed and shouted down. It was a near melee. Renowned City Attorney, Alan Bojorquez, was interrogated by two Council Members in open session rather than in Executive Session. He resigned three days later with a letter Cutshall referenced but did not disclose. Thankfully, the Statesman did disclose the contents of the alarming letter. 

At the next meeting, December 10th, the City Manager received cupcakes from “Community Impact News” with a note of appreciation to the City Manager. This came after the City Manager’s office had refused to turn over public records (Cheryl Lee’s Report about the City Manager’s failing performance) to Cutshall, for which Cutshall called us!

The Council Members still pushing the recall have run up at least $137,080 in investigative and attorney costs.

These divisions are harmful and costly distractions. 

We need local news, but I am trying to impress on you the importance of providing unbiased local news or at least telling both sides. 

What can we do to help, is my question for you. I really look forward to the discussion. 

Please reach me as soon as you are able. 

Sincere and best wishes for the New Year at CIN!

Linda Curtis

Linda Curtis, Chief Organizer, League of independent Voters of Texas (LIV) • 512.213.4511 • contact@livtx.org CIN Response, received January 13

Dear Ms. Curtis,

Thank you for taking the time to read our coverage and reach out. I apologize for my late response—I wanted to consider your email fully. 

My name is Sierra Martin, and I am the Editor of the Bastrop Edition of Community Impact. Eric Weilbacher, who you initially included in your email, is an Editor in the San Antonio metro area.

Our mission at CI is to provide accurate, unbiased, and timely information. The recent political situation in Bastrop, as you no doubt know, has been a difficult one to navigate. We try to keep the impact on the community front and center in our reporting and go beyond the horse races of politicians feuding. As such, sometimes we are not the first to a story, or sometimes our reporting is briefer than that of other outlets because we want to ensure we are being rigorous in our fact-checking. For example, we have included information about the no-bill in our print coverage but focus on the recall election since our readers may see the item on their ballots in the future. 

Our sales team gave cupcakes to all of our advertisers throughout the company to wish them a happy holiday season. Our editorial and sales teams operate separately to ensure there are no biases in our reporting.

We appreciate your insight into our coverage and the feedback. We are always looking to grow. We are happy to speak on or off the record in the future as we continue to cover this city if you ever have concerns or feedback on our reporting. I will share this feedback with my team and continue pursuing future coverage options. 

If I have missed a factual error, please let me know and we will look into it for a possible correction. 

Best,

Sierra Martin

Editor