Endorsement: Elect Jim Irizarry to lead San Mateo County Assessor Office

Editor’s note: Please read our endorsements in other critical races on Bay Area voters’ June 2 ballots as well as our interviews with dozens of local, state and national candidates here.

There are two candidates running to replace Mark Church, who is retiring after nearly 16 years as San Mateo County’s assessor.

We support Jim Irizarry.

The assessor’s job is hard enough on its own in San Mateo County. Last year, it meant determining the taxable value of more than 220,000 residential and business properties whose combined assessed value exceeded $340 billion.

Keep in mind that this is not your average county to assess.

It’s home to some of the largest, most technologically sophisticated companies on the planet, including Meta in Menlo Park, Gilead Sciences in Foster City and Oracle in Redwood City.

Assessors must not only calculate the value of these corporations’ office buildings but also the hardware and software inside them.

Then realize that in this 740,000-person county, elected assessors also wear three other hats. As clerks and recorders, they issue and store vital records, like birth certificates, marriage licenses, deeds, liens, etc.

And as chief elections officers, they run local, state and federal elections in a county with 20 incorporated cities, 23 school districts and 440,000 registered voters.

With a job as uniquely complicated as this, why put an amateur in charge — especially when San Mateo County voters don’t have to?

Irizarry, 74, has spent the last 13 years running this office as Church’s second-in-command.

Irizarry doesn’t need to learn how to run elections on the fly. He doesn’t need on-the-job-training to understand the taxable value of, for example, a genomics startup’s new R&D lab in Burlingame.

A Woodside resident with a degree in economics from San Jose State University, Irizarry is a state-certified appraiser and former real estate broker who has lived in this county since moving here from Puerto Rico with his family six decades ago.

Since 2013 while working for Church, who announced he would not seek reelection in January, Irizarry has overseen residential, commercial and business-property assessments, managed 35 elections and helped make this county a nationally recognized pioneer of mail-in voting.

In an interview with our editorial board, Irizarry emphasized that he would be a force of competency and continuity. He told us his priorities include protecting this county’s mail-in voting system from federal attempts to take over local elections and responsibly expanding use of AI.

Frankly, his ambitions are modest, and this sits well with us. This is not a venture capital-backed startup. It needs stability, not disruption.

Irizarry’s opponent is cut from a different cloth.

David Canepa’s main sales pitch is his force of personality, which he wants us to believe can make up for a lack of any relevant technical know-how.

Gregarious and loquacious, the 50-year-old former Daily City councilmember is now approaching his ninth year on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.

By all accounts, Canepa is well liked within his district, where he represents about 150,000 people in cities, such as Daly City, Brisbane and Broadmoor, in the county’s north. And he has secured the endorsements of the San Mateo County Democratic Party and several public and private sector unions.

However, none of his fellow supervisors has endorsed his campaign. In fact, a majority have endorsed Irizarry.

Canepa told us that’s a badge of honor. We think it’s a warning sign.

In an interview with our editorial board, Canepa painted Mark Church’s tenure as one of complete dysfunction. Irizarry, as Church’s aide, bears responsibility.

He points to some legitimate problems.

The office has struggled with staffing shortages. The elections office was painfully slow to count ballots in 2018, and it confused voters by sending two or even three ballots in 2020.

As one example of this office’s alleged incompetence, Canepa pointed us to the county’s assessment of Genentech. Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $20 million to settle the litigation with the biotech giant, which had claimed the county had illegally inflated its property’s taxable value.

The problem with Canepa using that case to tarnish Church’s and Irizarry’s legacies is that Genentech’s litigation stems from assessments made in the early 2000s, several years before either of the men ever worked in the office.

Canepa told our editorial board that Church and Irizarry had bad track records of assessment beyond Genentech. However, Canepa was not aware of the California Board of Equalization’s , which not only showed it met state standards but also that its assessments were more than 99.7% accurate.

This is not an office known for its incompetence.

Our own reporting has shown that Irizarry’s professional reputation among his peers in the Bay Area assessor community is sterling.

Whoever wins will face immense pressure as San Mateo County, like many other local governments across California, faces fiscal uncertainties with state and federal funding sources.

Earlier this month, the county released its proposed $5.2 billion spending plan, detailing investments in emergency preparedness, infrastructure, health services, and homelessness prevention. That budget is balanced but only tenuously.

As Bay Area News Group has reported, the county’s plan heavily relies on drawing down county cash reserves and assumes the recovery of millions in vehicle licensing revenues. If the licensing fees are not returned, it could spell service reductions.

Accurate assessments of local taxable assets are especially imperative.

About a quarter of this county’s $3.25 billion in property taxes is allocated to the county, with the largest share directed to its general fund to support healthcare, welfare, public assistance and criminal justice programs.

A majority of those local tax dollars go directly to local school districts. The remaining quarter goes to cities and special districts, supporting public libraries, flood control and healthcare systems.

Irizarry told us bluntly: “The stakes are higher than ever before in this election.”

We agree, and we believe he is the only candidate who deserves San Mateo County’s trust for a job as critical as this.

Vote for Jim Irizarry.