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?
One of the bigger cities in Germany.
We have a mayor for our district, who is basically a blank slate to 95% of people. It doesn't help that he lives together with his family in a different district. He is a member of one of our political parties and specifically one I don't particularly like.
For some reason I was in the same school class with his son, who was pretty chill, but got very annoying when it came to politics (of course).
So basically the mayor does a lot of city management stuff but the average person has no clue who he is or what exactly he does.
I would imagine that's very unique compared to most other countries but I'm not sure.