“My wife’s family is from Waterloo and the surrounding area,” Garcetti said, noting he last visited Waterloo about a year and a half ago.

But the mayor of America’s second-most-populous city is back in Waterloo for professional reasons this time: He’s one of several U.S. mayors on hand for Friday’s Local America Presidential Forum, which will pair some of those mayors up with five Democratic presidential candidates to focus on local issues.

“We want to make sure that, when one of these candidates becomes president, they come back here and say, ‘Waterloo matters. All communities matter,’” Garcetti said in a press conference Thursday at the Cedar Valley Sportsplex in Waterloo.

The forum, which is free and open to the public, runs from 4-9 p.m. Friday at the Sportsplex and features five presidential candidates — including a fellow mayor, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., currently the top-polling candidate for president among likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers.

Joining Buttigieg will be former mayors Sen. Cory Booker, who was mayor of Newark, New Jersey; and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, who was mayor of San Antonio, Texas; as well as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and businessman Tom Steyer.

The forum is jointly hosted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization of cities with a population of more than 30,000; and Accelerator for America, founded in 2017 by Garcetti and his former deputy chief of staff, Rick Jacobs.

“We’re really doing something that’s never been done before,” said Jacobs, now CEO of Accelerator for America. “We’re pairing mayors with someone who may be the next president.”

Though mayors from Oregon to Connecticut will be on hand, only five will be paired with one of the five presidential candidates: Mayor Andy Schor of Lansing, Michigan, will interview Castro; Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott will interview Booker; Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas will interview Steyer; Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will interview Buttigieg; and Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart will interview Klobuchar.

“It wasn’t random,” Jacobs said of the pairings. “We tried to unite diversity and geography in representation, and that’s what we have here.”

“Mayors are the ones that are face-to-face, in contact with local people every day,” Hart said. “So this is a great opportunity for us to have this forum.”

Hart pointed to the diversity of Waterloo as a good reason for the city to play host, including its sizeable populations of black, Bosnian and Burmese people, as well as the 75 languages spoken within the Waterloo school district. He also said Waterloo was unlike other post-industrial cities and in a “period of transformation.”

“This is the most important election we have in a lifetime, and not just nationwide but for local communities,” Hart said. “We look forward to a spirited, lively debate.”

Those mayors won’t go home empty handed, either: The University of Northern Iowa’s textiles and apparel program has created 35 Waterloo-themed bowties as a parting gift, according to UNI.

For more information or to watch a live stream of the forum, visit https://www.usmayors.org/local-america-forum/.