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QUESTIONABLE LEADERSHIP: Central Basin Directors Juan Garza, Nem Ochoa, Joanna Moreno, and Gary Mendez.
By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
September 12, 2025
Los Cerritos Community News has been sounding the alarm on Central Basin for years, and the rot just keeps spreading. What was once billed as an emerging regional water agency building reserves while serving millions has now sunk deeper into scandal, with four of its directors under clouds of illegitimacy, corruption, or both. From tax liens and illegal board seats to revoked nonprofits and incompatible offices, the district’s ruling majority is defined less by public service than by self-preservation.
LCCN has exclusively learned that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has granted the Whittier Union High School District permission to sue Trustee Gary Mendez in quo warranto, clearing the way for a Superior Court case that could remove him from office. Mendez is also VP on the Central Basin Board.
In a formal opinion issued September 11, 2025, Bonta’s office concluded that Mendez’s dual service as a Whittier Union trustee, a position he won in 2022, and as a Central Basin Municipal Water District director, elected in 2024, is incompatible under Government Code §1099. The law requires forfeiture of the first office when a public official assumes a second, incompatible one.
The Attorney General’s analysis was blunt: even the possibility of a “significant clash of duties or loyalties” between the offices is enough to make them legally incompatible. Central Basin supplies water to retailers who then sell it to Whittier Union schools. Both districts also hold powers over water, sanitation, and even eminent domain, creating an unavoidable overlap of authority.
Citing decades of precedent, including a 2002 opinion that found the very same offices incompatible, the ruling emphasized that public officials must avoid divided loyalties. “Only one potential significant clash of duties or loyalties is necessary,” the opinion noted.
LCCN had repeatedly called out Mendez for holding incompatible offices and openly called for his removal. Shortly afterward, Whittier Union filed its case in Superior Court to enforce what state law already dictates—that Mendez forfeited his trustee seat the moment he took office at Central Basin.
The ruling affirms what LCCN has reported for more than a year: Mendez’s position on the Whittier Union board is unlawful, and his ongoing service deepens the corruption already plaguing Central Basin.
LCCN has also spent the past two years documenting the rot inside Central Basin. Director Juan Garza took on La Luz del Mundo as a client even as its leader was tried and convicted for child abuse in a scandal likened to Jeffrey Epstein. Garza was also hit with a $50,000 tax lien, which he mysteriously paid off within a year (and won’t answer LCCN questions on how he paid it off), and he operated his Bellflower business without a license for three years, one year as Mayor of Bellflower. President Nem Ochoa, who also serves as a GM at Golden State Water, and Director Joanna Moreno, an engineer with the City of Industry, continue to illegally occupy their appointed positions despite both terming out in November 2024, while General Manager Elaine Jeng and General Counsel Victor Ponto shamelessly run interference.
Now, Gary Mendez joins the corruption pool. LCCN exposed him for operating a revoked nonprofit and, as confirmed by the Attorney General’s opinion, he faces removal from his Whittier Union seat for holding incompatible offices.
That makes four Central Basin directors—the very voting majority—tainted. A majority built not on public trust, but on corruption. And yet, despite LCCN delivering the evidence directly to local law enforcement and Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, nothing has been done. Their inaction has allowed this corruption to fester, proving once again that when it comes to Central Basin, accountability is always someone else’s problem.
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