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By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
December 15, 2025
Last week, Los Cerritos Community News revealed that for more than four years, Central Basin Director Juan Garza has quietly operated the California Cities for Self-Reliance Joint Powers Authority, a publicly-funded agency, through Bellflower-based Six Heron, Garza’s privately owned public-relations and government-relations firm.
Part One of High Stakes, Dirty Water, Red Flags exposed how Garza used his own email, cellphone, and Bellflower P.O. Box as the JPA’s official operational and procurement pipeline, effectively turning a public agency into a one-man operation under his exclusive control.
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But the consequences of that operation extend far beyond procurement secrecy. Garza’s dual roles as Executive Director of the JPA and Central Basin Director for Division 4 mirror those of Central Basin Director Gary Mendez — and in several key respects are even more problematic. Mendez recently resigned from his Whittier Union High School District seat because of his conflict between that seat and his Central Basin seat, a situation that was confirmed to have overlapping jurisdictions and divided loyalties.
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Garza’s situation goes much further, involving not only overlapping jurisdictions but also continuous financial and operational entanglements with the JPA he runs, the private firm he owns, and the public water district he serves. These conflicts are embedded in his day-to-day duties, his contracting authority, and his renewal of the JPA contract — actions that place his Central Basin seat in direct violation of Government Code 1099.
Government Code 1099 bars a person from holding two public offices at the same time when the duties of those offices overlap or create divided loyalties. The law does not require misconduct; it applies whenever the responsibilities of the two positions could conflict. When an official assumes or renews an incompatible office, the statute operates automatically — the first office is deemed vacated by operation of law.
The 1099/Quo Warranto Case
The JPA Garza runs is not a small or symbolic entity. It represents the cardroom cities of Bell Gardens, Commerce, Compton, and Hawaiian Gardens, all of which lie inside Central Basin’s service footprint. Hawaiian Gardens sits directly in Garza’s own division he was elected to serve.
Through the JPA, Garza is paid $6,744 per month to lobby, educate, coordinate strategy, and advocate for the cardroom industry on behalf of those member cities. Through Central Basin, he is tasked with regulating water rates, infrastructure, environmental compliance, and policies that affect those same cities. Garza is also taking over $2,500 per month in stipends from Central Basin, meaning he is being paid by both agencies at the same time: one to advocate for the cardroom cities and the other to regulate their water service. These are not two separate worlds. They are the same map.
Garza Speaks — but His Answers Only Deepen the Conflict
When questioned about representing Hawaiian Gardens both through the JPA and at Central Basin, Garza sidestepped the core issue that Hawaiian Gardens is a JPA member city that helps fund his executive-director salary and also a major Central Basin ratepayer directly affected by his votes.
Garza told LCCN, “Under my employment agreement with the JPA’s Board of Directors I am compensated to undertake my employment responsibilities… In reviewing my agreement, ‘advancing a city’s cardroom revenues’ is not one of them. To clarify, I do not represent ‘the City’ (of Hawaiian Gardens) at the Central Basin Municipal Water District, I represent the electorate and citizens residing within the jurisdictional City boundaries, not the City.”
Garza also claimed he is exempt from Government Code 1099, telling LCCN, “There is no conflict between my employee role with the JPA and my public officer position… CA Govt Code 1099 section (c) states ‘This section does not apply to a position of employment’… [and] section (d) states ‘This section shall not apply to a governmental body that has only advisory powers,’ the JPA… recommends action but has no executive powers.”
Garza’s reading of 1099 ignores both the law and Attorney General precedent. He is not a civil-service employee but a contracted executive director who manages public funds, oversees operations, executes contracts, and directs lobbying strategy — all functions the AG has repeatedly held constitute a policy-making public office, not exempt employment. And his claim that the JPA is “advisory” is contradicted by its own actions: it hires contractors, approves budgets, coordinates legal and legislative advocacy, and issues public solicitations.
Garza himself has spoken at multiple protest events as the JPA’s spokesperson.
When asked about conflicts created by routing JPA operations through his Six Heron pipeline, Garza argued the JPA is “legally separate and distinct” because it was formed under Government Code 6500. But Section 6500 simply authorizes the creation of a Joint Powers Authority; it does not permit a JPA to operate through a private company, does not exempt it from open-government or conflict-of-interest laws, and does not override Government Code 1099 or the Attorney General’s incompatible-office doctrine.
In fact, a JPA formed under Section 6500 is a public agency precisely because it must operate transparently and independently of any individual’s private business — the opposite of how this JPA functioned under Garza’s control. Garza operated the JPA entirely through Six Heron — using his private email, cellphone, and Bellflower P.O. Box, and personally receiving and evaluating public-agency bids. Government Code 6500 creates JPAs; it does not shield them from public-agency rules or authorize running them through a private firm.
Attorney General opinions evaluate how officials “actually perform” their duties, not what an entity is labeled. By running a public agency through his private business, Garza erased any meaningful separation between the JPA and Six Heron, and the 6500 citation offers no defense to the conflicts that creates.
Conflicting Mandates, Colliding Duties
CCSR’s public mission statement underscores the direct conflict: the JPA “exists to empower communities and leadership statewide to advocate for card rooms as vital resources to cities and local services such as police, fire, schools, and transportation.” Hawaiian Gardens — home to The Gardens Casino — is one of its most critical members. As Executive Director, Garza is paid to protect and advance the revenue generated by that card room on behalf of the city.
As a Central Basin director, he votes on wholesale water rates and infrastructure decisions that directly affect the city’s financial stability and the casino’s operating costs. Those dual obligations collide every time Central Basin considers any action affecting Hawaiian Gardens or the JPA cities whose interests Garza is contractually bound to advance.
The conflict becomes sharper when the missions of both agencies are placed side by side. The JPA’s stated purpose is to advocate for card rooms and protect their economic interests, working with cities to secure revenue streams and regulatory stability.
Central Basin’s mandate is to provide reliable, affordable water while maintaining strict financial, environmental, and governance standards. One position requires advocacy; the other requires neutrality, oversight, and regulatory independence.
California Government Code Section 1099 is clear: a person cannot hold two offices when one exercises supervisory, auditing, or regulatory authority over the other, or when the responsibilities of the two positions create conflicting loyalties. The law does not require corruption. It requires only the possibility that the duties of the two offices might conflict.
A Built-In Conflict, Not a Hypothetical
Garza’s elected authority at Central Basin affects every city the JPA serves. Central Basin sets wholesale water rates, oversees key infrastructure, approves project spending, and makes long-term decisions that directly impact city budgets.
Those budgets depend in part on card-room revenue- 75% of Hawaiian Gardens’ budget comes from The Gardens Casino- the financial backbone of the cities Garza represents through the JPA. When Central Basin considers any action affecting water rates or capital projects in Bell Gardens, Commerce, Compton, or Hawaiian Gardens, Garza is expected to represent Central Basin ratepayers independently.
But at the same moment, he is paid by the JPA to protect the financial stability of the cardrooms in those same cities. The conflict is not abstract; it is baked into the two job descriptions.
The JPA is an agency of its member cities. Central Basin is an agency that serves those same cities. When a Central Basin director also runs the JPA representing those cities, the director’s duties are inherently intertwined. The overlap is even more striking considering the JPA’s mission: legal action, advocacy, lobbying, and political strategy. These are not passive duties. They are active, directional roles requiring Garza to advance the interests of the JPA’s member cities, even when those interests may conflict with the water district’s financial or operational needs.
California’s incompatible-office standard focuses on whether the duties of two offices could clash in practice, not whether the official believes he can balance them. And Garza’s own behavior only deepens the conflict.
While Central Basin struggles with financial uncertainty, quorum failures, and governance breakdowns, Garza has spent years building the JPA into a vehicle he personally controls. The same private channels he used to run the JPA have never been disclosed to Central Basin, leaving ratepayers unaware that one of their elected directors has been paid to advocate for the cities Central Basin serves while simultaneously voting on the water policies that affect them.
The MWD Extension of the Conflict
And the incompatibility issues extend directly to Garza’s Metropolitan Water District seat.
The legal conflict arises from Garza’s position as Executive Director of the California Cities for Self-Reliance JPA. In that role, he is paid to advocate for the interests of a separate public agency whose member cities can be directly affected by MWD policy decisions. Because his MWD votes must reflect the interests of Central Basin residents while his JPA duties require him to advance the priorities of entirely different municipalities, the two positions create an unavoidable conflict of loyalty that falls squarely under Government Code 1099.
When questioned about the MWD conflict, Garza responded dismissively, writing, “To recap, Govt [sic] code 1099 section c [sic] explicitly exempts public employment, which I have as the Executive Director of the JPA. Section 56 of the MWD Act of 1928 explicitly allows for the dual central basin and MWD roles. LAFCO is not MWD, as MWD has an explicit allowance for this under the MWD Act of 1928. And MWD sets rates on Central Basin itself. You should make sure you have your facts straight.”
Garza’s response repeated the same flawed defenses without addressing the conflict itself. Government Code 1099 does not exempt contracted executive directors who run agencies, manage funds, execute contracts, and direct advocacy — duties the Attorney General has consistently treated as public office, not ordinary employment.
Section 56 of the MWD Act allows a Central Basin director to sit on the MWD board; it does not authorize that director to simultaneously run a lobbying JPA whose member cities are affected by MWD and Central Basin rate decisions.
Dismissing Attorney General precedent by saying “LAFCO is not MWD” ignores the law’s core test: divided loyalty. And while MWD sets wholesale rates charged to Central Basin, those costs are passed directly to the same cities that pay Garza’s JPA salary.
High Stakes, Dirty Water, Red Flags Part Three: The 1099 Trigger
This second installment of High Stakes, Dirty Water, Red Flags exposed how Garza’s control of the JPA collides with his authority at Central Basin — and how that conflict intensifies when extended to the Metropolitan Water District seat he holds only because of his position on the board.
Part Three follows the legal trail to its unavoidable conclusion. California Government Code 1099 requires only one thing to determine whether a public official has forfeited office: the order in which the incompatible positions were held. Garza’s own documents make that order unmistakable.
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