Endorsement: San Jose needs a blight fighter. Elect Genny Altwer to City Council.

Mayor Matt Mahan’s March budget message to the San Jose City Council provided a sobering view of what ails this city:

A $56 million deficit. Falling employment. High office vacancy rates. A slowing residential property market. Decelerating property tax growth. Weak sales tax returns. City costs outpacing revenues. More deficits ahead.

Those pressures come on top of San Jose’s persistent challenges: one of America’s most unaffordable housing markets; low police retention and high overtime costs; toothless code enforcement, derelict landlords and blight. Then there is the city’s 10,000-pound gorilla: a homelessness crisis that divides the council and threatens San Jose’s relationship with Santa Clara County.

These are among the issues confronting termed-out Vice Mayor Pam Foley’s successor. Five candidates are running in the June 2 primary to represent District 9’s 100,000 residents. This southwestern corner of San Jose is home to tree-lined streets, single-family homes and affluent neighborhoods, including Cambrian Park, Hillsdale, Kirk Park and parts of Willow Glen.

District 9 does not have the same degree of vacant storefronts, job losses, blight and homelessness as other parts of San Jose. But it is not immune. Whoever replaces Foley — a key member of the mayor’s business-aligned governing majority — must be able to address district concerns while helping solve citywide problems.

We believe that candidate is Genny Altwer.

Altwer, 45, represents neither the status quo nor a radical break from it. She is broadly aligned with the mayor and vice mayor’s pragmatic approach, especially on public safety and homelessness. But her unconventional resume should bring new thinking to old policies.

Altwer grew up in the district before becoming a police officer in San Mateo. In her dozen years with the department, she served as a field training officer, peer counselor, sexual assault detective and hostage negotiator. Since 2019, she has been a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice, focusing on first responders and essential workers.

Blight fighter

She is also not a complete neophyte to San Jose City Hall. Altwer serves on the city’s Appeals Hearing Board, which oversees code enforcement disputes. Her year and a half on the board has opened her eyes to the weakness of city law in fighting blight.

If elected, she told our board one of her top priorities would be reforming city code to break through the months and years of procedural delays that prevent officials from protecting neighborhoods from urban eyesores — dilapidated buildings marred by graffiti, strewn with trash and occupied by homeless residents.

On housing, Altwer is more supportive of adding density outside her own district. She supports housing of all types where it is “appropriate,” which she defined as close to mass transit, especially downtown. That is a politically convenient answer in a mostly affluent suburban district where construction is unpopular. But it also reflects pragmatism. San Jose badly needs housing, but not every neighborhood has the infrastructure to absorb thousands of new residents, students and commuters overnight.

On fiscal issues, she showed a willingness to question entrenched spending assumptions. The San Jose Police Officers Association, which endorsed her, will likely pressure her not to cut the exorbitant overtime expenses eating into city revenues. But Altwer made clear she is committed to being a good steward of the public purse.

Cop turned therapist

Her background as both a cop and therapist could be most valuable on homelessness. As San Jose moves toward a more coercive approach for homeless residents who repeatedly refuse shelter, the debate over enforcement will remain central at City Hall. Altwer supports the Responsibility to Shelter framework. But unlike candidates who speak about homelessness in ideological terms, she has worked inside both law enforcement and mental health systems.

That gives her credibility when she argues many street-level crises are better handled by therapy-trained community service officers than armed police — and credibility when she says enforcement still has a role.

Altwer’s opponents have strengths, but also some red flags.

Scott Hughes, 59, Foley’s chief of staff for seven years, understands City Hall intimately. But his candidacy asks voters to trust an insider to repair the system he helped operate. When pressed on the structural deficit, his answers were too vague for someone working at the highest levels of city leadership. He offered few new ideas.

Gordon Chester, 39, a city engineering technician in the public works department, is an urban housing policy auto-didact. His advocacy for mid-rise wood-frame construction as a cheaper path to density reflects genuine passion. His support for expanding community service officers where armed police are unnecessary is persuasive. But when asked how he would reduce the deficit, he said his first commitment was not reducing city staff. He also opposed using AI to supplement city work.

Chester is an idealist at a moment when we need a pragmatist. San Jose faces years of deficits. Across the Bay Area, cities, counties and school districts face hard decisions that will likely require staff and service cuts. If AI can help provide services without compromising safety, the governments must be open to it. Chester’s focus on protecting city jobs above other priorities is a concern.

Mike Hennessy, 71, is a 26-year Cambrian resident with four decades of experience running an auto repair and restoration business. He told our board his experience as a union-friendly business owner would help bridge the council’s business-labor divide. Hennessy is a gregarious community leader who has organized charity drives and civic events. But he speaks about San Jose’s problems in broad strokes that do not suggest he would excel at the municipal policy and finance details councilmembers must master.

Rick Ator, a 47-year-old tech professional, has not raised the funds or earned the endorsements needed to run a viable campaign.

San Jose needs a District 9 representative who understands public safety, mental health, code enforcement and fiscal realities. Altwer brings the mixture of compassion, independence and real-world experience Foley’s constituents deserve.

Voters should elect Genny Altwer.

To read our other endorsements on Bay Area voters’ June 2 ballots and our interviews with candidates for critical local, state and federal offices, please visit mercurynews.com/opinion/endorsements/.