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?
Our local Mayor is a millennial. Everyone on the city council is boomer or older. The boomers are children playing highschool politics with obvious smear campaigns, audience plants, and are clamoring about "disrespect" that the mayor showed when forced by the media to make a statement about the councilman doing something so egregious in a meeting it made national news.
I feel bad for the Mayor and hate those city council fucks. But I live outside the city boundary so even though we're affected by their policies we can't vote or anything.
It's horribly shameful.