In my CA town, you serve the council for max two terms and then start standing for elections at regional level for higher political rungs. If politics isn’t yo

In my CA town, you serve the council for max two terms and then start standing for elections at regional level for higher political rungs. If politics isn’t your flavour, then because of the contacts you made during your two term tenure, you can either offer consulting services or will be invited to be on the board of something. Usually non profits like affordable housing or environmental non profits etc. almost all of them have real estate mafia ties. This is how they get zoning and rezoning measures pushed. Example: an elected official after term became a board director in the neighboring county. $220k etc remuneration for part time no work. Over three to five years. Sometimes this job is the promised payment for favors done during their time in council. These are multi million dollar real estate projects and everything has to be approved and passed by the city council by majority. There is no citizen input. This is is just one example. You have to play politics to be in politics.