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By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
April 22, 2026
In November 2025, Los Cerritos Community News launched High Stakes, Dirty Water, Red Flags, a multi-part investigative series revealing that for years Central Basin District Four Director Juan Garza quietly operated the California Cities for Self-Reliance Joint Powers Authority, a taxpayer-funded agency, through Bellflower-based Six Heron, his privately owned public-relations and government-relations firm.
The reporting detailed how bids, contracts, and day-to-day operations were routed through Garza’s privately owned firm, which for years was not licensed with the City of Bellflower, where he lived and previously served as mayor, raising immediate red flags under California law governing procurement, transparency, and conflicts of interest. By controlling the JPA’s operations, receiving bids, and managing public business through his own private infrastructure, Garza erased the legal separation required between a public agency and a private enterprise.
The investigation found that this private control, combined with Garza’s repeated renewals of his now $6,000-per-month contract as the JPA’s executive director while simultaneously serving as an elected Central Basin director, placed his seat on the Central Basin Municipal Water District at risk of automatic vacancy under the state’s incompatible office laws.
Part One documented how Garza used his personal Six Heron email, company cellphone, and a Bellflower P.O. Box as the JPA’s operational and procurement pipeline, effectively turning a public agency into a one-man operation.
Part Two exposed how that private control collided directly with Garza’s elected authority at the Central Basin Municipal Water District, where he votes on water rates, infrastructure, and other decisions affecting the very cities that fund his JPA executive-director salary — including Hawaiian Gardens, a JPA member city located within his own Central Basin division, and Bell Gardens, Commerce, and Compton, all of which are within Central Basin’s service area and therefore subject to his official authority.
Part Three moved from conflicts to consequences, examining the legal trigger created by Garza’s JPA arrangement and repeated contract renewals. Garza has served as Executive Director of the California Cities for Self-Reliance Joint Powers Authority since March 2020 and joined the Central Basin Municipal Water District board in December 2020. Since taking office, he has repeatedly renewed his paid JPA employment contract while continuing to vote as a Central Basin director and as Central Basin’s delegate to the Metropolitan Water District.
Part Four shifted the focus from Garza’s conduct to Central Basin’s response — or lack of one. Despite extensive reporting by LCCN, public notice, and repeated questions, Central Basin leadership, including then-President Nem Ochoa and Director Joanna Moreno, along with counsel Victor Ponto of Burke, Williams & Sorensen, took no action to determine whether Government Code section 1099 had been triggered, requested no independent legal review, and made no referral to an enforcement authority. Instead, the board continued operating as if the issue did not exist, even as votes, contracts, and major personnel decisions moved forward.
Because Garza’s authority at the Metropolitan Water District flows from his Central Basin seat, any finding that his Central Basin office was forfeited would call into question the legal basis for his participation in MWD decisions. If the Central Basin seat falls, the MWD seat — and every vote tied to it — would come under scrutiny.
Recently, Central Basin Director Art Chacon, citing LCCN’s reporting, called for an investigation into whether Garza is holding incompatible public offices. He also called for an investigation into whether Directors Moreno and Ochoa are lawfully seated.
The board agreed to an investigation but conducted an extremely limited review, then addressed the issues in closed session and concluded, according to sources, that no action was warranted against Garza. The board did not report out that determination, as required by the Brown Act.
No public explanation, no independent legal review, and no open-session analysis followed. What followed was not resolution, but continuation — votes cast, contracts approved, and decisions made after the board was on notice and chose not to act.
Under California law, disputes over whether an individual lawfully holds a public office are resolved through quo warranto proceedings — civil actions brought in the name of the People of the State of California. Such actions are initiated by the Attorney General or by a private party granted permission by the Attorney General to proceed. Quo warranto is not punitive. It answers one question: does the individual lawfully hold the office, or has it already been forfeited by operation of law?
That question now sits outside the Central Basin boardroom.
California courts and Attorney General opinions have repeatedly applied these principles to local and special district officials, including water agencies.
In People ex rel. Chapman v. Rapsey (1940) 16 Cal.2d 636, the California Supreme Court confirmed that when two public offices are incompatible, acceptance of the second operates to vacate the first by operation of law.
Attorney General Opinion 90 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 49 (2007), addressing a water district director, further makes clear that incompatibility is determined by actual duties and potential divided loyalties, not job titles, and that forfeiture occurs automatically when those conflicts exist.
Courts have said that quo warranto is the only way to decide who legally holds a public office. That means these questions must be settled in court, not by the agency itself.
If Garza lost his seat when he renewed his JPA contract, the impact goes beyond just his position. Actions the board took while he was still voting can be challenged. Votes by someone who is not legally in office do not become valid just because no one spoke up or time passed.
Public agencies cannot ignore state law by doing nothing. When a law works automatically, waiting does not fix the problem — it makes it worse. Every new vote taken without settling a director’s legal status increases the risk and the consequences.
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