Mayor Jung Myunggeun: "Building Korea's No. 1 City with Citizens"... Launch of Hwaseong Companion Council

Hwaseong Launches Korea's First and Leading Public-Private Collaboration Council

Provisional "Hwaseong Companion Council" Initiative for Citizen-Led Governance

Citizens to Lead Policy Planning and Implementation

Major Local Issues to Be Publicly Discussed Starting Next Year

Mayor Jung Myunggeun: "We Will Open a New Era of Cooperative Administration"

Hwaseong Special City in Gyeonggi Province (Mayor Jung Myunggeun) is moving forward with building a new model of public-private governance in which citizens directly participate in the policy-making process. To realize Mayor Jung Myunggeun's core pledge for the 9th elected term of "citizen-led cooperative administration," the city is actively preparing to launch the "(provisional name) Hwaseong Companion Council," which is expected to become the first and leading example of public-private collaboration in Korea.

Jung Myunggeun, Mayor of Hwaseong Special City, is giving a greeting at the full meeting of the Hwaseong Future Vision Committee. Provided by Hwaseong City

The Hwaseong Future Vision Committee (Chairman Jo Seungmun) held a full meeting at the Modunurim Center seminar room on July 15 and announced plans to establish a new citizen cooperation council.

The Hwaseong Companion Council seeks to go beyond the traditional approach where the administration explains policies to citizens. Instead, it aims to realize "cooperative administration," in which citizens join in both the planning and execution stages of policies.

The city plans to broadly gather opinions from civic organizations and complete institutional procedures, such as forming an organizing committee and enacting or amending related ordinances, with the goal to inaugurate the council in October this year.

In particular, starting from the first half of next year, the city envisions discovering local issues and common agenda items together with citizens and expanding public participation by facilitating public discussions and deliberative processes on major city policies.

The launch of this council is considered a key project in fulfilling Mayor Jung Myunggeun's campaign pledge to create "a Hwaseong where citizens are at the center." It is anticipated to become a new administrative model where both the public and private sectors design the city's future together.

The meeting also discussed key policy directions for the 9th elected term.

The major pledges include: ▲introduction of "Koribot," an artificial intelligence (AI) public official; ▲expansion of metropolitan, airport, city, and express bus routes; ▲establishment of a Hwaseong-style circular railway; ▲relaxation of regulations on temporary buildings in factories; ▲free provision of sanitary pads in public restrooms; ▲expansion of the Youth Employment Support Center; ▲"Just Dream" basic food security program; ▲continuous issuance of 1 trillion won in local currency; and ▲expansion of Hwaseong-style basic income villages.

Mayor Jung Myunggeun stated, "These next four years of my term will be even more significant than the past thousand years," adding, "We must carefully consider what to prepare for and what outcomes we will achieve."

Jo Seungmun, Chair of the Hwaseong Future Vision Committee, is explaining the administrative operation direction for the 9th elected term at the full meeting of the Hwaseong Future Vision Committee. Courtesy of Hwaseong City

He continued, "Now is the time to swiftly deliver tangible results for citizens, rather than just making plans and conducting studies," and emphasized, "Let us pool all our resources to make Hwaseong Special City the number one city in Korea, together with our citizens."

Jo Seungmun, Chairman of the Hwaseong Future Vision Committee, remarked, "We must work together so that the manifestos and policy tasks prepared by the future vision and advisory committee members can lead to real results," and added, "We are committed to steadily fulfilling each strategic pledge to help Hwaseong Special City become a representative city of Korea."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.