A mayor’s power is often seen, even when compared to a governor’s or prime minister’s/president’s power, as having the highest potential of actually being appreciated, as the latter positions come with having a bunch of invisible pieces and filters to tend to, even supposing you decided to be dictatorial about things. Despite this, or maybe in spite of this, whenever I see very loved and communal individuals, they see it as above their area of motivation to run for local office. There isn’t a single city, town, or village I’ve been to where the mayor’s level of connection to the people around them isn’t overshadowed by that of at least some of the citizens, in fact I see the mayor, district attorney, sheriff, town judge, etc. in my own area as being visibly condescending blowhards who are bedfellows with the local activists who are known to have no issue ruining childrens’ lives the Ally Bank way. Even to you I’d recommend running for some form of town office, though with you too, I doubt the challenge would be stepped up to. You could make a difference in your own little fragment of the world.
So considering most people I talk to wouldn’t take up the suggestion to run for something like mayor, district attorney, sheriff, town judge, etc. what is your local government scene like? And are you different from those who won’t step up to the challenge?
Historically you don’t hear a lot about Baltimore’s mayor unless they’ve done something really awful. In the early 2000s we had some riots that broke out from police brutality (Freddy Grey), The mayor at the time said some very non-choice words and ended up becoming very unpopular very quickly. She was followed up by a mayor that was taking bribes, she was found complicit in businesses having to order a large quantities of her book to receive preferential treatment, ended up with a 3-year prison term. She was followed up by somebody who was okay but short-lived, The current guy that’s in there is relatively young, he just turned 40. He’s good for the city and he doesn’t tend to make controversial decisions, as long as you’re a Democrat I suppose.