As Rick Ator drives around the quiet tree-lined streets that crisscross District 9’s picturesque suburban neighborhoods, he notices the problems that aren’t getting solved — derelict cars left unmoved for months and unsightly plastic “quick-build” road improvements that never seem to get replaced with permanent materials.
In such moments, he said he often asks himself the same question: Is anyone from the city seeing this?
Now, Ator — a longtime tech worker and entrepreneur who has ventured into neighborhood advocacy — is jumping into the crowded field of contenders vying to replace Vice Mayor Pam Foley as District 9 councilmember when she terms out at the end of the year.
Ator, 47, said between his nose-to-the-ground neighborhood knowledge and extensive tech experience, he can offer District 9 “data-driven, results-oriented leadership,” as he seeks to tackle public safety, homelessness and affordability issues.
“I just feel like a regular person who’s out there talking to people is what we need today,” Ator told San José Spotlight.
Ator is one of five candidates on the June 2 primary ballot in the District 9 race, the only open City Council contest this election cycle. The other candidates are Scott Hughes, who serves as Foley’s chief of staff, licensed marriage and family therapist Genny Altwer, longtime city employee Gordon Chester and local entrepreneur Mike Hennessy.
The District 9 contest will be one of three competitive council races taking place in San Jose’s June election. District 7 Councilmember Bien Doan and District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz are facing down three challengers each as they seek to win a second term, according to a recently finalized candidates roster. Meanwhile, the councilmembers leading District 3 and District 1, Anthony Tordillos and Rosemary Kamei respectively, are also up for reelection, but are running unopposed.
Ator, who grew up in Hayward, moved to San Jose in 2010 and owns a home in the Valley View Reed neighborhood. After working for 10 years as a mechanic — during which time he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at San Jose State University — Ator launched a career in project management, working at a number of well-known companies including Adobe, Walmart, eBay and Albertsons.
“If you’ve ever been to Walmart.com and you try to see if an auto part fits your car — that little widget, me and my team built that,” he said.
As a resident, he has used his tech know-how to help out in the neighborhood by teaching elderly residents how to use artificial intelligence coding tools. In addition, he has also taken part in several policy-making processes touching on local land use questions.
In one case, he served on a citizen advisory body for San Jose, providing community input on the city’s rollout of Senate Bill 9, a state housing law opening up single-family neighborhoods to denser development. Ator also rallied neighborhood opposition against a proposed eight-story affordable housing complex set to replace a shuttered strip mall along Hillsdale Avenue.
Ator said he objected to the project, which was ultimately scuttled in 2024, due to its lack of nearby amenities and because it would have been out of proportion with the surrounding neighborhood made up largely of single-family homes.
Such organizing work has earned Ator a degree of neighborhood notoriety, and won his campaign some dedicated supporters.
“Rather than just complaining about the situation, he was taking action and taking the lead in a very impressive manner,” longtime Valley View Reed resident Christa Hedrick, who also organized against the Hillsdale Avenue project, told San José Spotlight. “He’s demonstrated leadership that District 9 desperately needs.”
Ator said he agrees San Jose needs more housing, including more affordable projects, but objects to projects that advance without community input.
“My position is that it needs to be done right: placed near existing services and infrastructure, scaled appropriately for the surrounding neighborhood and developed with genuine community input,” he said.
Ator’s platform most sharply diverges from San Jose’s current orthodoxy with his full-throated rejection of quick build road safety projects.
Such projects use impermanent materials, like plastic bollards, to carry out rapid road improvements along high-risk corridors. He argues it’s better to focus the city’s scarce infrastructure resources on a smaller number of road improvements made only with permanent materials.
“The quick build approach wasn’t so quick,” he said. “Residents hate the sticks in the road … it looks really bad esthetically.”
On other topics, Ator’s campaign priorities mesh well with the city council’s current business-friendly majority.
When it comes to public safety, Ator said he supports hiring bonuses and retention incentives to attract more officers and narrow the San Jose Police Department’s longstanding staffing shortfall. Ator also applauded Mayor Matt Mahan’s approach to reducing unsheltered homelessness, and said he would support continued efforts to expand the city’s shelter capacity.
But Ator said his track record of problem solving in the tech world has set up him well to find solutions in local government others may have missed.
“If I ask people, ‘Raise your hand if you’ve had your quality of life improved in the last 10 years,’ not many are going to raise their hand,” he said. “That’s sad.”
Contact Keith Menconi at [email protected] or @KeithMenconi on X.