This is the “big fish in a little pond” syndrome, of local leaders behaving badly because they demand that everyone else show deference to them and their ideas.
In past it reached extremes like throwing their critics out of town for good, and forced commercial boycotts of their critics, aka “Your money isn’t good here, get out.” The fear of such punishment was redoubled with the SCOTUS ruling with the infamous Kelo decision:
“On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a 5-4 vote that the City of New London’s taking of private, non-blighted property for the purpose of economic development satisfied the constitutional “public use” requirement.”
This signaled open season for local big fish to use government to oppress those they hated, and those that they just wanted to steal their land.
So the struggle with local tyranny continues.
“City of New London’s taking of private, non-blighted property “
And to this date it was never developed
Kelo v London was based on the 1954 Berman v Parker case, which was brought due to Congress having decided to “take for public use” blighted areas of DC and let private developers “improve” them.
This could have been fixed with Kelo, but the USSC went along with the land grab rules.