Board member sued her water district, now it wants $818,000 from her

Lawyers for the Central Basin Municipal Water District have asked a judge to order an elected board member to pay $818,000 in attorney’s fees to cover the costs of defending against her failed lawsuit against the agency.

Water board member Leticia Vasquez-Wilson, who alleged in the 2022 lawsuit that administrators violated her civil rights, now says Central Basin is attempting to bankrupt her in retaliation for her “unwillingness to go along with their crimes.”

“I don’t have this kind of money,” Vasquez-Wilson wrote in a March 18 email to supporters. “I’ve been a public servant my entire life.”

She declined to comment when reached by phone.

In a phone interview, Ron Wilson, Vasquez-Wilson’s husband and attorney, called the motion “frivolous” and said he expects the judge to deny it. The district must prove Vasquez-Wilson filed in the lawsuit in bad faith, something he did not believe they have done or could do, he said.

Still, the threat of such a large fee has put her under tremendous stress, he said. Vasquez-Wilson has a separate pending workers’ compensation case against Central Basin in which she alleges she has suffered from physical and mental ailments as a result of her treatment by the district.

“It’s just more of an effort to harass director Vasquez, to try to bully her, to try to scare her,” he said.

Sean Kneafsey, one of the attorneys representing Central Basin, said in an email that the district is pursuing the remedy authorized under California law for filing an “unreasonable” lawsuit “without foundation.”

“Further, the damages Ms. Vasquez sought in this case included attorneys’ fees for her husband,” Kneafsey wrote. “It is odd that Ms. Vasquez would object to the District seeking attorneys’ fees when that’s exactly what she sought from the District.”

Vasquez-Wilson’s lawsuit alleged the district and former General Manager Alex Rojas violated her free speech rights by blocking her from speaking during the public comment portion of board meetings, preventing her from placing items on the board agenda, turning off her email account, denying her compensation for attending certain meetings, withholding documents and information related to district business, and through her alleged assault by another board member, who grabbed her arm in an attempt to prevent her from speaking during a meeting.

The court issued a preliminary injunction in 2023 that barred Central Basin from “prohibiting, stopping or interfering” with Vasquez-Wilson’s right to speak during meetings after finding she had presented “unrefuted evidence” that the district had done so before.

Still, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Holly Fujie ultimately threw out Vasquez-Wilson’s lawsuit late last year before it went to trial on the grounds her side did not meet the standards required under the law and had not “presented facts or evidence showing that any actionable threat, intimidation or coercion interfered with or attempted to interfere with her constitutional or statutory rights.”

Fujie ruled that some of the allegations in the lawsuit either happened after it was filed and would not be considered, or had happened too far in the past to meet the statute of limitations.

Fujie subsequently denied a motion by Vasquez-Wilson’s attorney to set aside that judgment.

Attorney Kurt Dreibholz, of the Kneafsey Firm, filed the motion for attorney’s fees earlier this month and it is set to be heard in July. The costs cover six attorneys’ rates, including three who charged more than $800 per hour, for 1,222 hours of work. The motion states the attorneys worked at “below market rates for Central Basin.”

Kneafsey said the motion seeks to “recover both the fees that were paid by Central Basin itself as well as fees paid by Central Basin’s insurer.” The water district did not pay $818,000, he said.

Wilson believes the figure is “just a made-up number.”

“They’re just trying to punish her and retaliate against her,” he said.

Dreibholz, in the motion, alleged the lawsuit was “frivolous and abusive” and an attempt to fish for dirt to use against the district in a “future whistleblower or qui tam action into alleged public corruption, embezzlement and money laundering.”

Vasquez-Wilson previously sued the district as a whistleblower in 2013 after uncovering an alleged $2.75 million slush fund and received $750,000 as part of a settlement.

The more recent civil rights lawsuit did lead to the discovery that Central Basin, under Rojas’ leadership, had hired a construction management company with secret ties to Rojas’ co-defendant in a criminal bribery case. That company, Capstone Partners Group, was run and staffed by employees of the Del Terra Group, a company that prosecutors allege paid $400,000 in bribes to Rojas while he served as superintendent in the Bassett Unified School District.

Rojas has denied having any prior knowledge of the connection. He has also pleaded not guilty in the bribery case.

Still, concerns about the connection, sparked by a deposition in Vasquez-Wilson’s case, led to Rojas being placed on administrative leave and the commission of two independent reports on his handling of the selection of Capstone and the district’s finances in general. Those reviews accused Rojas of sidestepping internal controls at Central Basin while evaluating and overseeing Capstone’s contract and of inflating his salary and benefits by more than $75,000 without the water board’s approval.

The District Attorney’s Office took notice of the allegations in October and ordered the district to turn over recordings and meeting minutes covering a four-year period in which the district was led by Rojas. No charges have been filed related to Rojas’ time in Central Basin.

Rojas was fired without cause by the board in November. He has denied any wrongdoing and is now contesting the legitimacy of the vote to terminate his contract.

The legal battles between Central Basin and Vasquez-Wilson are far from over. Wilson already has filed the civil rights case again in federal court and said it will now include additional allegations that Rojas hired armed security guards to intimidate and eject anyone who spoke about his arrest during meetings. That was brought up in the prior case, but was rejected by Fujie because the alleged actions took place in 2023 after the lawsuit was filed.

“They never stopped, it is still going on,” Wilson said. “I’d rather proceed with a new lawsuit than go through a two-year appeal.”