Pinay Vies for Glendale City Council Seat

Edith Fuentes

GLENDALE — Filipino-American Edith Maniquis Fuentes, has formally announced her intention to run for a seat in the Glendale City Council. Fuentes, who is also a former member of the said Council, kicked off her campaign with a cocktail party with friends, family, and supporters at the Glendale Hilton Hotel on Thursday night, September 20.

Fuentes has most recently served as the zoning administrator for the Glendale City Council. On March of this year, she decided to go for an early retirement after almost 36 years of public service in three cities across two states. But the clamor for her to return to service proved to be strong.

On June 14, Fuentes was nominated and endorsed by the Filipino-American Business Association of Glendale for one of the three seats available in the City Council.

"I am running because community members want me back," Fuentes said in an interview with Hiyas magazine. "I want to continue helping and serving my community," she added.

Former Glendale Mayor Bob Yousefian, who was present at the kick-off party, said that Fuentes' extensive experience in working with the Glendale city council make her a very strong candidate for the position.

According to Yousefian, having been the zoning administrator for Glendale, Fuentes has been able to "travel through the streets and see all the issues that she needs to deal with."

"And in her position as zoning administrator, she has interacted with a lot of people. Especially business people, or even regular residents who wanna do something to their house. If they need help, she has always tried to guide them in the right way to make life easier for them," Yousefian added.

"This is what you need when you want to be a city council person. You need to identify the problem and also have solutions for the problems, and I think she does have that [characteristic]," the former mayor explained.

When asked by the Asian Journal, Fuentes said that the top three issues that she plans to deal with are fiscal responsibility, the business sector, and public order and safety. Fuentes said that she intends to personally meet with all the public safety workers of the city to "ensure that their goals are in line with" hers.

In pursuing fiscal responsibility, Fuentes is pushing for more prudent spending on the part of the Glendale city government, as well as a wise approach to generating government revenues without necessarily raising taxes. The former city zoning administrator also wishes to encourage the proliferation of small to medium enterprises as a means of generating more tax dollars while at the same time taking care of the business sector.

Among those present at the kick-off party are Atty. Albert Abkarian, Mr. Tony Maniscalchi, Ms. Sandy Schultz, and Former Glendale Mayor and Current Councilmember Rafi Manoukian.

Fuentes is most notably known for her historic victory in the courtroom in a case against her then superiors at the Glendale City Council who allegedly demoted her from a zoning administrator position to a planner position. The reasons for this undue demotion were purportedly discriminatory in nature. Having won the case, she was granted administrative leave for six months, and was allowed to retire on September 10 at age 62 as Planning Administrator.

Mico Letargo is a writer for Asian Journal.

Photo from Asian Journal.

This article originally appeared in Asian Journal.

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