The first thing the land owners expected with a new mayor was pushback regarding their security.  They had come to expect the ignorance of the successful towns.  The only question was how and when a corrupted backwater would be liquidated.

Putting an outsider in a position of authority-  The landlords knew the stakes.  There were countless grudges in their midst, and they sabotage each other, but taking the youth off guard detail would be a step closer to annihilation.

There was not a place to work, nor facilities to occupy their time.  Lording it over the less fortunate was about the only esteem those thugs had left.

When the mayor gave his first decree, it confused everyone.

He converted the town into a martial state, at the same time, saying it was a lawless zone, and offering no counter.  He offered training to anyone willing to show up, with no strings attached, and no questions asked.

The whole thing screamed trap, but their mayor wasn’t some corporate snake.  He was a sadistic demon.  Pitting factions against each other left right and center, he encouraged vengeance, held the town's wealth out on a silver platter, and sponsored anyone who was so inclined as to go after it.

He was a joke of leadership, and became the crux of malice.  Organized crime erupted into the frame, neighborhoods burned, and infrastructure tanked so hard that a child could do better.

And…

They did.

Halfway into his grace period, these crime families came to a dreadful realization.  That their best, most devastating efforts left their adversaries better off.  That the mayor was tipping people off, preventing them from hitting where it truly hurt, and using the chaos to seed change.

They were being played by a puppet master, and their patrons were in a similar boat.  Trapped between diversions and an ever tightening net, and if anyone tried to step out against him… they would be checked by the flow of marauders.