Why does local politics matter?

As I grew up in a city with a few thousand inhabitants, in the most populous state of Brazil, I saw the municipal elections as a major event. Perhaps one of the biggest events, in my trifling perception about that small town. My recollection of the local elections is that they mobilized the residents in a similar way to the football championships in the 90s. These were times of “santinhos”, “jingles”, electoral propaganda on the façades of houses, waving flags on street corners in central regions of the city. Also, they were times of re-democratization.