Dear IID Board of Directors:

Do your job and help us.

After only a few meetings while everybody was busy working, all IID Directors voted to raise household energy rates by 39% over the next three years.

Meanwhile, the IID is sitting on over $60,000,000 of ratepayer money they overcollected from us. If the rate increase is truly necessary, why not use that money to help ease the burden on us? If they refuse, we’re ready to recall them.

Join the 407 people who have already pledged to support the recall if our demands are not met.

THE IID DIRECTORS NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW THIS HUGE INCREASE IMPACTS OUR FAMILIES.
THERE’S STILL TIME TO AVOID A RECALL: MEET OUR COMMON-SENSE DEMANDS.

RECALL

•

HAMBY

•

RECALL

•

DOCKSTADER

•

RECALL

•

CARDENAS

•

RECALL

•

EUGENIO

•

RECALL

•

PACHECO

•

RECALL • HAMBY • RECALL • DOCKSTADER • RECALL • CARDENAS • RECALL • EUGENIO • RECALL • PACHECO •

OUR DEMANDS ARE SIMPLE.

A recall will be started against any IID director who doesn’t vote for the following plan to return the over-collected funds back to the ratepayers until ALL of the $63 million is exhausted:

  1. Expand eligibility for the Residential Energy Assistance Program (REAP) to 300% of the federal poverty line, up from 200%. Currently, a middle-class family of 3 can’t make more than $51,640 (before taxes!) to qualify.

  2. Increase the REAP discount to 25% from the current 20%. That is OUR money!

  3. Increase the current REAP discount for seniors (60+) to 35% from the current 30%. Support our seniors!

  4. Use up to $900,000 on a one-time blitz to get eligible ratepayers signed up for REAP.

  5. Use not more more than $3 million of the funds for additional staff to process REAP applications over the life of this plan.

SHOW THE IID WE’RE SERIOUS ABOUT RECALLING THEM IF THEY FAIL TO ACT.

Nothing like this has ever been attempted before at this scale, but we’re ready.
We can’t do this without people like you who are willing to put their foot down and demand what is rightfully ours.
Thank you for being willing to support the IID Recall and our demands!

DISCONNECTED FROM the NEEDS of their voters
OR BOUGHT BY THE BIG FARMING FAMILIES?
Probably a bit of both.

$65,723

Annual salary for IID Board members, which is in addition to any income from their day jobs. Their IID salary alone is 10k more than the median income of Imperial County. (Source)

$400,000

Annual salary for the IID General Manager, approved by the same IID Directors who raised your rates. Another 75k on the way. (Source)

$358,000,000

Of our state and federal tax dollars the IID has spent to pay farmers to not use their fields since 2014. No money goes to fieldworkers who face reduced hours. (Source)

3/5

Seats on the IID Board that are directly controlled by farming/ag interests. They’ve been collecting on their investment, while the rest of us pay the price. (Source)

1/3rd of ‘Lithium Valley’ is now dead in the water

primarily because of the IID’s failures and incompetence. (Source)
Denying the rest of the Valley hundreds of good jobs while they and their friends get richer.

$5,000

Spent on one IID sponsorship of a private meeting of the “IVH20” council of rich farming families who only care about making water cheaper for them—not the rest of us! (Source)

$70,000+

In 2022 campaign contributions from farmer families, companies, and interests to current Board Chair Dockstader, whose family also owns Docs Farms. (Source)

Frequently asked questions

  • The IID, led by Chair Dockstader and Vice Chair JB Hamby, have claimed it is all of a sudden necessary to perform massive infrastructure upgrades. If that is true, so be it, but give regular working families extra help—just like they do for their big ag donors.

    They performed this rate change immediately after Hamby and Pacheco were elected—both of whom pledged during their campaigns to keep rates low or to vote against any rate hikes. How fast things change.

    The IID also rushed the entire process and didn’t hold public meetings in each city. The few meetings that it did hold were not attended by any IID board members or were held during working hours. The rest of us have lives!

  • Politicans only care about one thing: getting re-elected and staying in power. A recall threatens them where it actually matters; the time for conversation is nearing an end, which is why we demand the IID directors adopt our proposal or something substantially similar. It is an ultimatum: do your job or be recalled.

  • Each IID director who refuses to meet our demands will be served with notices of recall at a public meeting and/or their place of residence or business. Further, each recall is treated as a separate proceeding, so individual recall petitions will be circulated in each district. We have identified recall captains in each IID division who will help establish steering and collection committees.

  • You can read more on the current eligibility requirements, download an application, and see instructions here on the IID website.

  • This website and the email blast were self-funded and created by a steering committee of renters and homeowners—all of whom are IID ratepayers in Imperial County. To protect ourselves from certain retaliation from these powerful IID Directors and their wealthy donors, we’ll remain anonymous for now. Once we raise or spend more than $2,000, we’ll be required to register under the Political Reform Act.

  • Not necessarily. They are obviously important to the local economy. However, a majority of voters are not rich ag families or big business owners, and it is time our IID elected representatives start acting this way—and start acting in the best interests of all of Imperial Valley and the IID ratepayers. The ag industry has gotten way too comfortable getting its way for so long without any real opposition.