Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has made quite the meteoric rise in the 2020 discussion.

But he's making this rise on the tail end of a tenure as mayor of his hometown, a tenure having its share of successes and failures.

NewsCenter 16's Joshua Short is the first and only local reporter to sit down one-on-one with the mayor since his presidential campaign announcement.

It's the first in his series of reports: 'Up Close and Personal with Mayor Pete.'

“This is definitely not how I expected to spend my 8th year as mayor,” Buttigieg said.

But now with his meteoric rise on the national stage, expectations are high for Buttigieg. The mayor of a city, Politico once called ‘Nowhere USA.’

“Honestly I am surprised,” he said about the pace in which he’s gained national notoriety.

“I believe in the message, I believe in my candidacy, but I thought it would be a long slow burn.”

So far his candidacy has been more like a flash fire than a slow burn as he’s now one of the top democratic presidential candidates vying for 2020. But November is still a long way off. Without having a record of legislative accomplishments nationally, Mayor Pete will be judged largely on his record right here in South Bend.

“I can point to things you can count,” the Mayor told Short when asked about accomplishments as the leader of his hometown.

“The impact we had on the neighborhoods with the thousand houses in a thousand days, transformation of downtown…but the biggest one of all is the one I can’t count, it’s the fact that the city believes in itself again, the fact I can say in a room full of people ‘South Bend is back’ and everybody knows exactly what I’m saying and people agree.”

He also agrees he’s made some mayoral mistakes.

“We’ve got a long way to go when it comes to inequality in this city. This is a city that remains largely low income, and a lot of that inequality is experienced along racial lines,” he explained.

About 40-percent of South Bend residents are people of color, according to a 2017 report on the city’s racial wealth divide. But his wealth of honesty on what needs to get done didn’t stop there. That report is detailed in the above video.

“We’ve got a long way to go in making sure that our police department reflects the community we serve,” the mayor added.

This is something he also made reference to in his campaign kickoff speech.

“Racial justice is freedom, because you’re not free if there is a veil of mistrust between a person of color and the officers who are sworn to keep us safe,” Buttigieg said.

Joshua Short’s series of reports continue this week on 16 Morning News.