Alex Rojas, the ousted general manager of the Central Basin Municipal Water District, is suing his former employer and petitioning a judge to reinstate him on the grounds that his termination did not comply with his contract or the district’s administrative code.

Rojas’ attorney, Craig Missakian, asked for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented the district from hiring a replacement for Rojas until the case resolves, but a judge denied the request this week, saying there isn’t enough evidence that such a hiring is forthcoming or that it would impact Rojas’ bid for reinstatement.

The district has operated under an interim general manager since Rojas was fired in November and is still in the process of selecting a search firm to find its next leader.

The merits of the rest of the case are not likely to come before the judge until this summer. The next hearing is currently scheduled for June, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s website.

In an interview, Missakian said Rojas should be returned to his former role due to water board’s failure to follow its own rules.

“When the board voted at that special meeting on Nov. 1 to terminate Mr. Rojas, they did so without complying with the Brown Act, the board’s own regulations or Mr. Rojas’ employment contract,” he said. “As a result, the vote to terminate him was invalid.”

Central Basin’s board voted 4-0 in November to terminate Rojas “without cause” and paid out roughly $200,000 to cover the remainder of his contract, which was set to expire in August 2025. Three of the board’s seven members were absent at the time of the vote.

Rojas, who is facing criminal charges for allegedly accepting bribes while serving as superintendent of the Bassett Unified School District, had been on leave since February 2024. His firing followed a third-party investigation that alleged he had sidestepped internal controls at Central Basin while evaluating and overseeing a construction management contract secretly tied to the man accused of funneling $400,000 in bribes to him in the Bassett case. A second probe accused him of inflating his salary and benefits by more than $75,000 without the water board’s approval.

Rojas denied the findings of both reports and threatened to sue the investigators for defamation and libel.

The same prosecutors who charged Rojas for his alleged role in Bassett later launched an investigation into Central Basin and ordered the district to turn over records covering the four-year period in which Rojas led the district. The former general manager has not been charged for anything related to his time in Central Basin.

Despite the allegations, firing Rojas “for cause” would have been significantly tougher. His contract requires Central Basin to take their grievances to an arbitrator and to give Rojas six months to “demonstrate improvement” if it intended to fire him for “major malfeasance.”

The crux of Rojas’ lawsuit largely revolves around an amendment to his contract in 2022 that requires the vote of six of seven board members to take “any adverse employment action” against him. The district’s administrative code similarly includes language requiring a four-fifths’ vote to terminate a general manager.

The board members who voted to get rid of Rojas took the stance that those thresholds only apply to the board members present during the vote. Two members interviewed at the time acknowledged the likelihood of a legal challenge, but said they did not believe the amendments to Rojas’ contract would stand up in court.

“If it gets challenged in court, we’re prepared to defend it and our actions,” board member Juan Garza said in November. “We’re confident that state law is on our side.”

Missakian alleges the meeting was not properly noticed 24 hours in advance and its agenda was not approved by then-board President Arturo Chacon as required by the district’s regulations.

At the same meeting where Rojas was terminated, the board voted to remove Chacon as president. The members in favor at the time accused Chacon of abusing his approval power to prevent any item he opposed — such as the firing of Rojas — from coming before the full body.

Rojas’ lawsuit requests the reinstatement of Chacon as president. Chacon, an ardent ally of Rojas, and Brian Hews, the publisher of the local Los Cerritos Community News, submitted declarations in support of Rojas’ case, according to court filings. Both wrote that they did not receive proper notice in advance of the Nov. 1 meeting.

The noticing portion of Rojas’ lawsuit is unlikely to go anywhere, however.

To overturn a vote based on a violation of California’s open meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, a complainant is required to submit a written notice and demand to “cure and correct” the violation within 90 days of the action. If the agency doesn’t respond or refuses to comply, then a lawsuit must be filed within 15 days of that demand, according to the First Amendment Coalition.

The deadline for the Nov. 1 meeting would have passed at the end of January.