“I had great teachers and mentors while I was here,” Quintana said. “They really encouraged me to get involved.”

Quintana mentors students from Bell High School and brings them along when she campaigns door-to-door in Bell. The students volunteer their time after school and on weekends to work on her campaign.

“I’m encouraging them to get involved,” she said enthusiastically. “The younger they get involved, the more it just becomes part of the social fabric.”

Quintana’s focus on education stems from her own passion for learning. Quintana has come a long way from her days as student body president and homecoming queen and holds degrees from Yale University and Columbia Law School. Today, Quintana, 35, works in southeast L.A. as a real estate attorney and community activist.

Quintana is one of five candidates running to replace Bell City Councilman Luis Artiga in a special recall election on March 8. If elected, Quintana will serve a two-year term on the Bell City Council.

Quintana is endorsed by the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.

In October 2010, three months after the salary scandal broke in Bell, Quintana moved from her mother’s home in neighboring Cudahy to an apartment in Bell, two blocks away.

After moving to Bell, Quintana’s experience in law prompted her to get involved.

She quickly learned that getting copies of contracts and other city documents was a difficult process and that many decisions made at City Hall were hidden from the public.

“I started reading through the Bell charter very carefully,” Quintana said. “I realized that the city government was not upholding the governing law and the charter left too much discretion to the city manager and City Council members.”

Quintana said she encountered resistance from city officials while researching the problems the city faces and realized that running for City Council would be the most effective way to incite change herself.

“I had to step up,” Quintana said. “I told myself, ‘If you turn back now, you can’t complain later.’”

Quintana said the salary scandal stripped her community of trust and confidence.

“People are not proud to be a part of this city that I love so much,” Quintana said. “I am very proud of this community. I could live anywhere I want and I’ve always lived here for a reason. I want people to feel that pride as well.”

Saving Bell

Quintana said the scandal is not just about six-figure salaries or a controversial city council.

“The scandal really comes down to people losing their homes because they couldn’t pay their taxes,” she said. “The scandal filters down to businesses not wanting to do business in Bell and leaving and going to other cities.”

As a self-employed real estate transactional attorney, Quintana focuses on new market tax credit financing. She evaluates financial contracts on a daily basis and works to bring investors into low-income communities.

“The scandal has really hurt our community and that is why I am stepping up,” Quintana said, “A lot of the people that are supporting me are doing so because they hope that I can help them salvage their situation.”

Quintana spent some time substitute teaching at Bell High School and Southeast High School, in the nearby city of South Gate, while studying for the bar exam. She believes the future of the community depends on civic activism, especially by the youth.

“If students start caring now, they will continue,” Quintana said. “It’s planting the seed. That’s what everybody needs; just plant the seed and it will grow because the interest will be there.”

Quintana said she considers working as an attorney, mentoring students and serving on city council as one and the same, because each role helps the community.
“I want to reconnect, rebuild and restructure Bell,” Quintana said. “The community needs to reconnect with the city.”

One of her main goals is to simplify the sharing of information between City Hall and the citizens.

“Right now, even if we all wanted to go to the city council meetings, we could not all fit because City Hall is incredibly tiny,” she said. “My goal is to stream the meetings online or upload videos on the web. This is an aspect of civic activism that students can help to achieve.”

If elected, Quintana said she will examine previously elusive documents to find ways to restructure the city’s finances.

“I’m sure we’re spending too much in some areas, like salaries, and not enough in others, like infrastructure,” Quintana said. “To fix the budget, we have to know, ‘What are we charging? What needs to be charged? Is it uniform? Is everyone paying the taxes they deserve? Why are people paying more than their share and others are not?’”

Quintana hopes to attract more businesses by lowering licensing fees and simplifying the process of starting a business in Bell.

“Start-up costs for any businesses are huge, but if you add high start-up fees and licenses, you’re not going to choose Bell, you’re going to go another city that is much more welcoming,” Quintana said. “Let’s make it lucrative; let’s make it attractive for businesses to come.”

Maintaining public safety in Bell is also a high priority.

“I will ensure that Bell has the necessary safety services,” Quintana said. “My commitment is to ensure that the police and fire services continue to meet Bell’s needs.”

Improvements on infrastructure and the beautification of the city are also on her to-do list.

“Our city’s not pretty and we have the potential to receive state and federal grants to help beautify our city,” Quintana said. “Those programs were created to assist communities like ours and we just need to access them. Someone should take the initiative to help our city benefit from them.”

Hope for Her Community

Quintana’s own childhood experiences as a Mexican-American have shaped her views on hard work. She was born in the United States, but spent the first decade of her life in constant migration between Mexico and Southern California.

“My parents had the mindset that they would come to the United States to work, but ultimately end up in Mexico,” Quintana said.

However, when Quintana was 9 years old, her parents decided to settle down in Cudahy.

Quintana attended Elizabeth Street Elementary, Nimitz Junior High and Bell High School. She describes herself as “very involved” and attributes her later successes to strong mentoring from her teachers.

After high school, Quintana moved across the country to attend Yale University on scholarship, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies.
After graduating from college, Quintana worked a typical 9 to 5 office job for a year before moving to Spain to take a teaching job. While working in Spain, she also earned a master’s degree in economics from La Universidad de Navarra in Spain.

Quintana returned to the United States and earned a law degree from Columbia University. After finishing school, she moved back home to Southern California.
“I felt that I went away for school, but this is where I would always come back to,” Quintana said. “This is home. This is where my family is.”

Quintana said she understands why citizens are skeptical of their city government, even with the prospect of new candidates.

“The biggest hurdle is trust,” Quintana said. “There’s an expectation that people should be held accountable, especially after we were betrayed. A lot of the questions I get asked are, ‘Well, what are you going to do for us? What services are you going to provide?’ And my response is always, ‘It’s not what I want to provide for you, it’s what you want me to do for you. And what you’re going to do with me to fix our city.’

“Some people are interpreting it as me being wishy-washy, but no, it’s being realistic. Unless we all get involved, we run the risk of getting five other individuals who do the exact same thing that happened before.”

Quintana admits that Bell has a long rebuilding process ahead of it, but believes she is ready to bring a new vision to the city.

“What makes me different is that I want this election to be the beginning of something different,” Quintana said. “I’m not here to fix Bell in the next two years. I’m coming here to set the pace so that people can start working towards building our own city.

“I’m very honest and I won’t make false promises that I can’t keep. I don’t know what the state of the government is in Bell, but I am going to look into it and do all that I can to bring the community together.”

Reach reporter Vicki Chen here