Jacob Rodriguez for Imperial Valley Healthcare District, District 3

Our hospitals are running on empty.

Fill the tank.

Once and for all.

Vote yes
Measure N

Vote no
all others

Jacob Rodriguez
For IV Healthcare District

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026

Why Measure N Volunteer

This is how a hospital dies. One service at a time.

Sixty-seven years of El Centro babies, and then the ward went dark in January 2023 without a single vote. Do nothing, and that is the preview for everything else.

One delivery ward left

More than 2,000 babies a year are now delivered through the one remaining ward in the county, at Pioneers Memorial in Brawley.

One cancer specialist

In August 2026, KYMA reported that one of the valley's two oncologists left, leaving a single specialist for more than 180,000 people. Patients described being sent to San Diego for follow-up visits.

Source: KYMA, August 5, 2026

2.5 hours to care

The official Measure N ballot text says it plainly: without new funding the hospitals face cuts or closure, and the nearest care becomes a drive of two and a half hours to San Diego or Riverside.

Source: Measure N full text, Imperial County Registrar of Voters

$56 million borrowed

Both hospitals took emergency state loans in 2023, 28 million dollars each, just to keep the doors open. The state has already extended both loans by a year and forgiven a year of El Centro Regional's payments. The balance comes due in full around 2030, and borrowed money runs out.

Source: California Department of Health Care Access and Information, Distressed Hospital Loan Program

I was born in one of these hospitals.

I was born at Pioneers Memorial in Brawley, and I have lived in El Centro my whole life. When I was a kid, Pioneers was where you wanted to be if you were sick. That is no longer true, and I intend to make it true again.

I make a living reading budgets and public records, and organizing people who are tired of being told to wait. My day job is making sure public money buys good jobs and benefits for the people who live next to big projects. I help lead Valle Unido, the resident coalition negotiating community benefits from the lithium buildout at the Salton Sea. I sit on the board of a local environmental justice organization. I built software that helps small campaigns file their disclosure reports correctly, and I wrote a 69-page citizens' report on fixing Imperial County's own governance. I helped get the law that created this hospital district signed.

Last year I spent days at Pioneers with my grandmother. I watched good people work around broken systems, and I decided I was done waiting for someone else to fix it.

I am not a hospital administrator and I am not running to be one. A board sets the goals and holds the administrators to them. That is the job, and it is the work I already do.

[ADD A PHOTO OF JACOB HERE]

What I will not do

I will not promise you a new wing. Measure N keeps the doors open and pays for the earthquake work the state requires. That is the whole promise.

I will not pretend one seat fixes this. The board is seven people and a motion needs four votes. My job is to make the case, count to four, and put the receipts on the table.

I will not sign off on an executive salary I could not justify to a nurse on the floor.

Measure N, in plain words.

One tax, for the two hospitals, with every dollar audited and staying in this valley. It needs a two-thirds yes vote to pass, so every single vote counts.

$111

per parcel, per year. About 30 cents a day.

2/3

of voters must say yes, which means two out of every three.

$8.9M

a year by the district's estimate, against a need of 7 to 12.5 million a year.

Where the money goes, straight from the measure: keeping emergency care local, hospital operations and equipment, expanding services including cancer, heart, and children's care, keeping qualified doctors and nurses, and the earthquake safety upgrades the state requires at Pioneers. Collection starts July 1, 2027. The measure has no end date. By January 1 every year, the district's chief financial officer must file a public report showing what the tax collected and where the money went, and an independent auditor checks the books annually.

What would it cost you?

$111 a year. About 30 cents a day.

Measure N is charged per parcel on the secured property tax roll, starting July 1, 2027. Most households own one parcel. Renters are not billed; the owner of the parcel is.

What Measure N raises against what the district says it needs

Millions of dollars a year. The shaded band is the district's own estimate of the yearly gap.

Measure N$8.9M a year
$0$7.5M$15M

Shaded band: the district's own estimate of what it needs, $7M to $12.5M a year.

Sources: Measure N full text (revenue estimate); March 26, 2026 debt capacity analysis recited in the measure (need range).

Yes on N

Measure N is the only measure on this ballot that funds a hospital. Without it, the district's own ballot language says the choices are cuts, service closures, or closing doors.

No on the rest

This is about timing and priority. Gas and groceries cost more every month, and voters will say yes to one new tax this year. So pick the one you cannot live without. You can outrun a fire or deal with an intruder. Nobody outruns a heart attack on their own. Emergency care is survival, and everything else on this ballot can wait a cycle.

Every agency in this county has known since 2024 that the hospital district had to bring voters a permanent funding measure this November. They put their own taxes on the same ballot anyway. Was that carelessness, or a way to get even over the merger law? Either way, the hospitals should not be the ones who pay for it.

How we got here, by the date.

  1. January 2023

    El Centro Regional closes its labor and delivery ward after 67 years. Every hospital birth in the county now happens at Pioneers Memorial in Brawley.

  2. August 2023

    The state approves emergency Distressed Hospital Loans of 28 million dollars for each hospital, 56 million combined, to keep the doors open.

  3. October 2023

    Assembly Bill 918 is signed, creating the Imperial Valley Healthcare District. The Pioneers and Heffernan districts dissolve into it.

  4. 2024

    Senate Bill 1070 requires the district to bring voters a permanent funding measure no later than the November 2026 election. Measure N is that measure.

  5. August 1, 2025

    The agreement transferring El Centro Regional Medical Center to the district takes effect. The transaction has not closed, and not every term is public.

  6. September 8, 2026

    The state Board of Equalization produces its records on how this district was placed on the tax rolls. That paperwork had sat unfiled for more than a year. A Public Records Act request to the county is still pending past its deadline.

  7. November 3, 2026

    The district holds its first election ever, and Measure N goes to the voters.

  8. July 1, 2027

    If Measure N passes, collection begins.

  9. Around 2030

    The state loans come due in full, and the state deadline arrives for the earthquake retrofit at Pioneers.

New money needs a watchdog.

A board governs by setting policy and goals, and it holds the day-to-day administrators accountable for carrying them out. That is the job, and I will do it in public.

The board is seven people, and a motion needs four votes. My job is to make the case, count to four, and put the receipts on the table. Here is what I will push for first:

  • Written, measurable goals for hospital executives, reviewed in open session. Executives who hit them keep the board's support. Executives who miss them do not.
  • Bring specialists back, and pay nurses and staff enough to stay.
  • Crack down on executive pay where it is excessive, and grow our own leaders. Hire and promote from this valley instead of paying outside executives who leave after three years.
  • A date in writing for restoring the services we lost, starting with births at El Centro Regional on the first day the district owns it.
  • The unglamorous work of stabilizing the place: procurement that finds savings, secure information systems, patient management that keeps people updated so nobody falls through the gaps, referrals processed on time, and billing that is timely and fair.
  • Chasing every dollar Sacramento and Washington owe rural hospitals, and verifying every dollar owed to this district arrives.

I have already started on that last one. I pulled the state Board of Equalization's own records on how the district got onto the tax rolls, and I have a Public Records Act request pending with the county for its side of the ledger.

The five things I would do in my first year are written down here, in order, so you can hold me to the list.

No promises. Just audits.

Dignity for the patient and efficiency have to go hand in hand. Too often we are told to sacrifice one for the other. It does not have to be that way. We deserve so much better than the bare minimum.

The hard questions, answered straight.

Five of them here. The rest, including the ones that do not flatter Measure N, are on the questions page.

Is this a forever tax?

Yes. Measure N has no sunset date and runs until voters repeal it. Hospitals do not have sunset dates either. The district has to open its books every year, and voters keep the power to repeal a local tax by initiative, which takes a signature drive and another election.

Why should I pay for a hospital I never use?

Nobody plans to use an emergency room. It has to be open before you need it, and it cannot be built in the twenty minutes after a heart attack starts. You are paying for the doors to be open at two in the morning, for you, for your kids, for your parents, or for the stranger in the other car.

Will the money just get wasted?

That is most of why I am running. Measure N puts the money in a dedicated account, requires an independent audit every year, and requires a public report from the chief financial officer by January 1. Those are words on paper until somebody on the board reads them out loud and asks why a number moved. I have been doing that work without a title already.

Why are you telling me to vote no on the other measures?

Timing and priority. Families are stretched, and voters will pass one new tax this year. Nothing else on your ballot keeps an emergency room open, and everything else can wait a cycle. Every agency in this county knew for two years that this measure was coming in November 2026, and they put their taxes on the ballot anyway. I will defend that call at any door in this valley.

Do renters pay this?

Renters are not billed. Measure N is charged to the owner of each parcel on the secured tax roll. A landlord may pass some of it along in rent. And a renter who calls an ambulance is taken to the same two hospitals an owner is.

Read all fifteen answers, or see the money behind them.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

Yes on N

Measure N, Maintaining Local Hospitals and Emergency Healthcare Services.

Rodriguez

Imperial Valley Healthcare District, District 3. Ballot name: Jacob Nicholas Rodriguez, Senior Community Organizer.

No on O, P, Q, R, S, T

One tax this year. Make it the hospitals.

Which board district do you live in?

The board has seven districts, drawn to about 24,000 people each. The names below are the main communities in each one, from the map the board adopted (Resolution 2024-01, the "Green B" map). El Centro and Calexico are both bigger than one district, so parts of each city sit in a neighboring district, and the only sure answer is the official map.

  • 1Brawley (no contest on the 2026 ballot; one candidate filed)
  • 2Calexico
  • 3El Centro (my race)
  • 4West county
  • 5Holtville and Heber
  • 6Imperial, Calipatria and Niland
  • 7East county: Winterhaven, Quechan lands, Palo Verde (two-year seat)
Open the official district map Check your registration

Districts 1, 2, 3 and the two-year District 7 seat are on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Districts 4, 5 and 6 vote in November 2028. Everyone in Imperial County votes on Measure N.

Two-thirds or nothing.

A two-thirds measure does not pass on a nice mailer. It passes on doors knocked and neighbors brought along. Give a weekend, host a sign, or bring two people who have never heard of Measure N.

Volunteer Request a sign