Mayor Quintero disavows support for City Council candidate Edith Fuentes

Mayor Frank Quintero on Tuesday said he was shocked to see his picture on a campaign mailer sent to Glendale residents this week by City Council candidate Edith Fuentes. He has not endorsed Fuentes, he said.

“I strongly disagreed with her opinions while serving as the city zoning administrator,” Quintero said, referring to the job Fuentes held before retiring last year.

Some of her decisions, which later got the city embroiled in several lawsuits, led to her demotion before she challenged the move through the city’s Civil Service Commission and won a $200,000 settlement.

Fuentes claimed she was demoted because of insider politics and discrimination. She framed similar complaints about her former boss in a 2000 lawsuit, which led to a public apology from city officials.

The mailer, which says “Glendale Mayors Support Edith Fuentes,” includes photos of Quintero and other past mayors.

For her part, Fuentes says she never used the word “endorse” on her mailer, but rather “support,” something she believed Quintero said he would do. But Quintero denies that.

Quintero did attend her informal candidacy launch party a few months ago, but he said he thought it was a Filipino American Business Assn. of Glendale meeting, not a campaign launch.

“I don’t know what happened to him” to change his mind, Fuentes said.

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