New Mexico Audit Candidate Says Saved Meow Wolf | Local News

Quintero’s campaign made a similar statement in a flyer listing his accomplishments.

“After college, Zack became a city economist, where he managed the contract between the city of Santa Fe and Meow Wolf that ensured they could stay in Santa Fe.”

This is not true, says Vince Kadlubek, who was one of the founders of Meow Wolf and its CEO during the relevant period.

Meow Wolf received a municipal grant of $ 60,000 which Quintero indirectly referred to in his discussions about an employment contract.

Kadlubek told me that the company appreciates the city’s support. But, he said, Quintero’s claim that he was instrumental in keeping Meow Wolf in New Mexico is false.

“The decision to be in New Mexico was independent of how little incentive we received,” Kadlubek said.

As for Meow Wolf’s dealings with the city government over the grant, Kadlubek said the majority were with Quintero’s boss.

“We mainly worked with Kate Noble,” Kadlubek said of the administrator who headed the city’s economic development department at the time. “Zack was a junior on the project.”

The city grant helped, Kadlubek said, but it was part of a larger effort. He said Meow Wolf was successful thanks to investors betting on the company, dedicated employees and his House of the Eternal Return exhibition in Santa Fe.

Meow Wolf has expanded its operations to Denver and Las Vegas, Nevada this year.

In recent interviews, Quintero told me that his motivations were pure to highlight his work on the contract with Meow Wolf.

“I wasn’t trying to make anything,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to start from any point other than presenting what I did.… I was coming from the point that I was a key asset.”

I asked Quintero how his work on a $ 60,000 government grant “kept Meow Wolf in New Mexico.”

He said he used the wrong word, and the statements he made now seem too general.

“I was instrumental in the success of a small business in Santa Fe,” Quintero said Thursday.

If he had described his participation that way, it would have been harder for critics to hammer him in during the Albuquerque city council election. He lost the race to outgoing councilor Ike Benton.

But speaking with me, Quintero also described his work on the Meow Wolf contract as “pivotal in that it contributed to the overall message that came from the mayor’s office and Vince.”

Keeping young people in Santa Fe and supporting New Mexico artists were priorities the company and the city insisted on, Quintero said.

Now 30, Quintero went to work for the Santa Fe Department of Economic Development in June 2014. He had obtained a bachelor’s degree in public administration and economics from New Mexico State University the previous month. .

His job title with the City of Santa Fe was Economic Development Specialist. In election appearances and advertisements during his run for city council, Quintero called himself an economist. He said he considered this description accurate based on the job the Santa Fe mayor and city manager expected of him.

“They said I was doing economist-based work,” Quintero said.

Quintero asked me to interview former Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales and City Councilor Signe Lindell to verify his responsibilities.

Gonzales, now out of politics, declined to speak officially. Lindell told me that she had no recollection of Quintero’s work on the 2015 grant for Meow Wolf. But she said she found him to be an industrious and reliable employee during his two years with the city.

Quintero went to law school at the University of New Mexico after resigning from his post in the Santa Fe Department of Economic Development. He graduated in 2019.

He worked as a state mediator for 10 months. After that he was on the staff of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for 17 months. Quintero said he is now working on a contract basis providing legal analysis in cases involving administrative law.

He is also busy campaigning for the post of auditor in what is expected to be a contested primary election in June. Joseph Maestas, a commissioner for public regulation in the state of Santa Fe, is also running for the seat.

Meow Wolf could still be a subject in the campaign. Quintero, however, did not save it from extinction in New Mexico.