Newspaper Is Purchased by Contractor

The nearly 100-year-old San Fernando Valley Sun, a weekly newspaper covering communities in the northeast Valley, has been purchased by Severyn Aszkenazy, owner of a San Fernando-based contracting firm.

The paper’s longtime editor, Thelma Barrios, said Tuesday that she was not allowed to discuss the sale.

“We haven’t even announced it here to our staff,” said Barrios, who over the years has served as the Sun’s editor, publisher and at one point, owner.

But documents filed with the California secretary of state on Feb. 7 list Aszkenazy as the Sun’s new owner. Last week the paper got a new look and a new name: the San Fernando Sun.

Aszkenazy and his wife, Martha Diaz-Aszkenazy, own Pueblo Contracting Services, the main contractor on the reconstruction of Angels Flight railway in downtown Los Angeles.

The company was recently named in a lawsuit involving a Feb. 1 accident on Angels Flight that killed Leon Praport, 83, of New Jersey, and injured seven others.

The accident is still under investigation.

Diaz-Aszkenazy chairs the board of the Greater San Fernando Chamber of Commerce. She declined to discuss purchase of the paper when reached Tuesday by phone.

Over the years the Sun has been owned by individuals and corporations including New Yorker Robert K. Straus of the Macy’s family, Michael Flannery, the Hearst Corp. and the Barrios family.