While a pair of bombshell stories dominated the news cycle in Fresno last week, one local news organization, Fresnoland, sat conspicuously silent.
The surprising silence on the pair of stories – bombshell revelations that Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno)often attended to state business impaired by drugs and alcohol and, separately, a nonprofit’s illegal use of composted human remains along the San Joaquin River – often unmentioned, but deep financial and organizational ties between the nonprofit website, Arambula, and his family.
Rewind: Arambula returned to headlines on Thursday on the revelation he was facing divorce from his wife of 11 years, Elizabeth.
In his own filings, Arambula wrote that his issues with sobriety led him to decide to voluntarily enter an in-patient drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in January, leading to a five-week excused absence from the Legislature to start 2026.
Elizabeth Arambula has openly questioned her husband’s post-rehab sobriety, pointing to security footage of him handing a THC pen to a friend at their home.
Elsewhere: Earlier Thursday, members of the San Joaquin River Conservancy excoriated the nonprofit San Joaquin River Parkway Trust for acquiring and spreading composted human remains from a Washington company at Sumner Peck Ranch, near Solitary Cellars winery.
The San Joaquin River Conservancy, a government agency that is separate from the trust, discovered the human composting and called on the Trust to stop.
Following a press conference held by Fresno and Madera County leaders, the Trust said it would stop bringing more human compost onto the property, per a report from GV Wire.
Postcards from Arambuland: Fresnoland, a nonprofit website heavily funded by far-flung. billionaire-backed endowment funds, hasn’t shied away from pointing out the often thorny relationships among Fresno’s media players, regularly highlighting the relationships between management of competitors, including GV Wire and The Sun, with various local officials.
Things, however, are quite different when it comes to its own relationship with Arambula and his family.
In 2022, Miguel Arambula, Joaquin Arambula’s brother, joined on Fresnoland’s Board of Directors. After The Sun’s report was published on Monday, Fresnoland removed Miguel Arambula’s name from the current list of board members, noting that he stopped serving on the board last year. The site was also updated to note that Diego Arambula, brother of Joaquin and Miguel, was a board member from 2019 to 2022.
The news site also lists Miguel Arambula as a donor who gave under $10,000 to the nonprofit for 2024-2025.
Shipping up to Boston: Dating back to 2021, the Rappaport Family Foundation – the nonprofit foundation launched by Arambula’s Boston-based maternal grandfather – became a funder of the organization’s coverage when it was then publishing under the masthead of The Fresno Bee.
Arambula’s grandfather, Jerome Rappaport, is best known as a major developer in Boston whose early career was deeply entrenched in Democratic politics and capped by two different accomplishments: first, assisting a three-term Congressman, John F. Kennedy, make the jump to the U.S. Senate in 1952; the other: flipping Boston’s City Hall and pressing for a wholesale campaign of gentrification in the city’s urban core.
The legacy of Arambula’s grandfather, in an ironic twist of fate, has come under the same withering criticism doled out regularly by Fresnoland to local developers, by pointing to his work to forcefully clearing the working class neighborhood of the West End, displacing 7,000 residents in post-war Boston, in the pursuit of gentrification for the construction of luxury urban housing.
Historians note that the Boston magnate used his wide political influence not only to force the gentrification of the West End – and eventually be named by city officials as its developer – but also “fought fervently to degrade tenant rights,” raised rents on the back of property tax cuts, and worked to completely undermine the city’s rent control regulations.
Deep dive: Along with silence on the jarring allegations unearthed from Joaquin Arambula’s divorce, Fresnoland rarely discloses its ties to the Democrat lawmaker and the fact that his brother sits on its board.
A search of Joaquin Arambula’s name on Fresnoland returns 81 articles and newsletters from 2022 to the present.
While Fresnoland has a common practice issuing disclosures at the end of stories that reference donors – such as the Central Valley Community Foundation or the Kresge Foundation – the news organization did not disclose that Miguel Arambula is Joaquin Arambula’s brother a single time.
Further, Miguel Arambula’s biography on Fresnoland’s Board of Directors page does not state that he is brothers with Joaquin Arambula.
Connections to the Parkway Trust: Fresnoland has referenced the Trust numerous times in its articles, most notably regarding Arambula’s attempts to block CEMEX from mining near the San Joaquin River.
Arambula proposed Assembly Bill 1425 to block CEMEX’s operations, but it did not get out of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
Arambula’s sister-in-law Chandelle Arambula sits on the Board of Directors for the Trust. She is married to Diego Arambula.
Fresnoland similarly did not disclose that connection in its reports involving the Trust.
Eyes on the future: Allegations surrounding Arambula’s sobriety have elevated beyond local news and captured the attention of national and international publications including the New York Post (and its sister, the California Post) along with the UK-based Daily Mail.
Arambula filed to run for the 3rd District, currently represented by termed-out Councilman Miguel Arias.
Arambula has also focused heavily on promoting like-minded progressive candidates for various seats within his orbit, backing social justice CEO Sandra Celedon to replace him in the Assembly and donating heavily to former Arias aide Ariana Martinez Lott for a different Fresno City Council seat.