Jason Jackson is running for El Centro City Council

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KYMA) - Jason Jackson is seeking a return to the El Centro City Council after previously serving, including a stint as mayor.

He served four years on the city's Planning Comission before being elected to City Council in 2011. He was reelected in 2015 and served as mayor in 2016.

Jackson is now making another bid for a seat on the council after also running in 2020, 2022, and 2024.

Now, he's asking El Centro voters to elect him again.

Jakson is one of the candidates seeking one of the two seats up for election this November.

A main issue he points to is the city's budget.

"Literally every dollar that's come in revenue-wise has been spent, and then they've dipped into some of the reserves on top of that," Jackson told KYMA in an interview.

"That's not sustainable, and I think that if you don't get ahead of that when, when there's an opportunity to, you dig yourself a hole where, then the alternative to balance that budget is to have to do things that drastically like cut staff or cut services to the community," Jackson explained.

He sad he wants to invest more in recreation for children and teens.

"The youth isthe future, and I have two young ones. I think I'm the only one that's probably running that has two young children," Jackson reflected. "When I was on the council before, I was the author of Measure P. And, you know, with my colleagues, we successfully passed that with the residents of El Centro, and that enabled us to really infuse millions of dollars into our parks." 

Regarding his past controversies, Jackson stated, "Everybody has things that have happened to them in the past. And, you know, you make amends and you move forward and, you know, you just do what you can to make things better."