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QUESTIONABLE LEADERSHIP: (l-r) Central Basin Directors Juan Garza, Nem Ochoa, Joanna Moreno, never objected to Mendez’ incompatible offices conflict, Mendez is far right. Directors Art Chacon, Leticia Vasquez registered their complaints constantly.
By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
November 24, 2025
In April of this year, Los Cerritos Community News was the first to report that Whittier Union High School District Trustee Gary Mendez was holding incompatible public offices — a conflict this newspaper had already detailed in 2024, after Mendez won his Central Basin Municipal Water District seat. At that time, LCCN warned that Government Code Section 1099 barred him from serving simultaneously on the WUHSD Board and the Central Basin Board due to the obvious clash of duties between a school district and a water agency that supplies its vendors.
Those warnings were validated months later. On January 10, 2025, the Los Angeles County Office of Education’s General Counsel issued a legal memo to WUHSD President Dr. Russell Castañeda Calleros and Superintendent Monica Oviedo concluding exactly what LCCN had argued: the two offices were incompatible. The memo cited overlapping boundaries, competing duties, water-rate impacts on the district, and decades of Attorney General decisions holding that a school board trustee and a water district director could not legally serve at the same time.
Whittier’s January memo remained undisclosed to the public for months — until LCCN obtained the document and published it on April 29, confirming that state authorities agreed with LCCN’s 2024 analysis. According to sources at both agencies, Mendez had begun fighting the determination immediately after it was issued, assisted by his allies on the Central Basin Board.
On May 17, 2025, LCCN exclusively reported that WUHSD filed a verified quo warranto action in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking Mendez’s removal. The filing alleged that Mendez automatically forfeited his school board seat the moment he took the oath of office as a Central Basin Director on December 18, 2024. According to court documents, serving Mendez with the lawsuit proved difficult; sources told LCCN he avoided the process server several times before finally accepting the subpoena.
The district argued that Mendez had illegally continued to act as a trustee despite government code language that mandated forfeiture once he assumed the second office. The complaint described the same divided loyalties highlighted in the January memo: Central Basin sets water rates, issues conservation restrictions, and holds eminent domain authority over the same geographic areas served by WUHSD. Any vote by Mendez at Central Basin on pricing or water supply could directly affect the school district he was sworn to protect.
But Mendez, according to sources, would fight the ruling to the very end. During that period, LCCN also reported that Mendez had continued to operate a defunct nonprofit, California Youth Martial Arts Academy, after the IRS and Franchise Tax Board suspended it in 2021. Despite its revoked status, Mendez solicited and obtained public agency funding under the CYM name, conduct that may carry civil or criminal liability under state and federal rules governing dissolved nonprofits.
But as usual, the do nothing Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman did nothing, just as he has done with the several Brown Act violations this newspaper has documented committed by President Nem Ochoa, Vice President Mendez, and directors Juan Garza and Joanna Moreno.
On October 7, 2025, the California Attorney General issued Opinion No. 25-501 authorizing WUHSD to proceed with its quo warranto suit and confirming that Mendez had indeed violated Government Code 1099. The AG concluded that the offices were incompatible and that Mendez forfeited his trustee seat in December 2024. The AG opinion explicitly cited LCCN’s May 17 exclusive story, marking a rare instance in which a state legal determination referenced a local newspaper’s investigative reporting by name, reference below.
Within weeks of the AG’s authorization — and facing a near-certain court order removing him — Mendez agreed to a settlement with WUHSD. In closed session on November 18, the board approved a resignation agreement, and Mendez set his departure date for December 9, 2025. The public announcement of the settlement excluded the ceremonial praise contained in other drafts; the essential fact was that Mendez resigned only after state and county authorities concluded he had unlawfully held two incompatible public offices for nearly a year.
With the seat now vacant, WUHSD will consider options for filling Trustee Area 5 at its December board meeting.
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