Martín Ulysses Fuentes By Abel M. Salas When Martín U. Fuentes launched his successful campaign for Cudahy City Council as a first time candidate for office in 2022, he was well-acquainted with the history of political scandal that had wreaked havoc on local municipal governments across a region now commonly known as South East Los Angeles, or SELA. For years, beginning with a 2003 L.A. Times exposé on then South Gate political operative Albert Robles, Jr., a tale fraught by charges of greed, graft and cronyism, Fuentes--and the rest of Southern California--had been steadily bombarded by unflattering media coverage with respect to the area. Reporters often referred to L.A.‘s southeastern suburbs as a “corridor of corruption,” a designation he considered excessive and not entirely fair. “I was still in high school when I started hearing about Robles and the shenanigans at South Gate City Hall,” says Fuentes. “Then it was (the city of) Bell, which was actually worse and had b...