Seated in front of Mayor Marty Walsh as he delivered his State of the City address on Tuesday night was City Councillor Tito Jackson, an ally of Candidate Walsh in 2013 who formally announced a challenge to the mayor in this year’s election last Thursday.

Before a crowd of supporters and reporters outside the Haley House bakery in Roxbury, Jackson pitched a message of new fiscal priorities, highlighting the need for increased investment in public education, public safety, and affordable housing.

“Boston is at a crossroads,” he told the gathering. “We’re at a fork in the road, a decision point. The middle class and our beloved community and the neighborhood I grew up in stands in the balance.”

Jackson said that the challenge is not personal, but based on a difference in priorities. He highlighted a Brookings Institution study that showed Boston has over just a few years risen from the third to first in an accounting of cities in terms of income inequality. He said that shootings are up in Boston, and that violence in the neighborhoods has become untenable.

The Boston Police this week disputed Jackson’s numbers, saying shootings of all kinds dropped from 2015 to 2016 — 229 down from 244 the year before. Non-fatal shootings were down to 194 last year, from 211 in 2015.

In his launch, Jackson committed to closing the education gap, highlighting a standing $40 million gap in the school budget, and saying he would ensure that all 6th to 12th graders had free monthly bus passes.

The councillor could not be reached before the Reporter’s Wednesday deadline for comment on Walsh’s speech.

On Tuesday night, Lincoln Larmond of Mattapan United, a community engagement initiative with a mission to help residents and allies improve quality of life, unity & community pride in the neighborhood, said that the mayoral candidates’ education priorities will be paramount.

While Walsh was announcing a $1 billion investment in Boston school buildings in his State of the City address, Larmond and other Mattapan community members were railing against what they see as systemic failure in the schools leading to unwarranted closures, such as the proposed transformation of the Mattahunt Elementary School to an early education center this summer.

“Tito’s come and given testimony to the Boston School Committee on behalf of the Mattahunt, so we know that he has actually done those things.” Larmond said. “So, I think we’re still open to hear what the message is from both candidates. I will say, on its face, Tito appears to be much more sensitive and responsive to the issues than the School Committee and the mayor is not at this point in time. But we’re open to having that conversation.”

Last Thursday, Jackson said he hopes to oversee a more long-term budgeting process, rather than year by year, prioritizing education and transit equity over flashier corporate deals. “We need to budget not just for sustenance, but for success,” he said.

He took issue with city spending priorities, particularly the lucrative incentives package offered to General Electric to secure that the company’s headquarters would relocate to Boston’s Seaport. In its place, Jackson said, there should have been increased funding for the school system. The councillor did not say whether he intended to negotiate or eliminate the GE deal should he be elected, but said he thought the idea of publicly funding a private helipad was ridiculous.

Jackson, who is aiming to become the 55th mayor of the city, also took a shot at a number of high-profile initiatives Walsh has championed.

“It is time that we break the mold, and have a mayor who sees and understands and is responsible to all Bostonians,” Jackson said, “It is time we had a mayor who spends as much time uptown as in downtown, who spends more time thinking and investing in neighborhoods and communities than focusing on City Hall Plaza. It is time we had a mayor who has a backbone to stand up to business proposals that would ruin our strong financial position, such as Boston 2024 or IndyCar,” he said.

Jackson is a lifelong resident of Grove Hall and has served as the District 7 city councillor since 2011, representing Roxbury and sections of Dorchester, the South End, and Fenway. The councillor lives in the same Schuyler Street house that his mother and father lived in when they adopted him from his mother, a 13-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted. His adoptive mother, Rosa Jackson, said her son will be “the best mayor you’ve ever known.”

The last time an incumbent Boston mayor lost for re-election was in 1949, when John B. Hynes defeated James Michael Curley. The political and financial hurdles can be daunting to challengers. Records show Jackson reported nearly $65,000 in his coffers as of Dec. 31. Walsh’s campaign account shows $3.6 million.

Mayoral candidates must submit 3,000 signatures to the election department by May 23 to secure a spot on the ballot.

State Rep. Russell Holmes was the only elected official present for Jackson’s announcement last week, although he said afterward that he had not yet made a decision on an endorsement. “I want to be where the action is; I want to see where the fireworks are,” he said. “I need to hear what the folks in my neighborhood are saying.”

The city councillor and the representative have talked about the mayoral run for the past six to eight months, Holmes said, amid requests that Holmes consider running for the post. He decided against pursuing a the mayoral run for personal reasons, “and I have the goal of maybe taking the next step of running for another four or five years.”

Jackson’s message appears to resonate, Holmes said. “I thought the most compelling question still around the city is wage inequality and wealth inequality. When he called me to chat about whether or not he was going to run I told him that that is the question he has to answer, and he can’t come and just yell… here’s the problem. He needs to have concrete solutions.

“So what I’m being asked is, is this going to be a wedge within the black, within the Hispanic community? It won’t be because what’s going to happen now is the mayor and Tito will have to address all the issues that are most pressing to us.”

Tito Jackson’s campaign website is titojacksonformayor.com.