Ko Yang-seok, speaker of the Gwangjin-gu Council, held a forum Thursday with representatives of local civic organizations to discuss ways to implement key community campaign pledges raised during the June 3 local elections.
The forum brought together delegations from the Gwangjin chapter of the Clean Election Citizens' Assembly and the 2026 Gwangjin Local Autonomy Sovereignty Alliance — an umbrella grouping that includes the Gwangjin Residents' Alliance, Gwangjin Forum and the Gwangjin Social Economy Network. Participants reviewed the core tasks laid out in a 26-item policy proposal spanning seven areas put forward during the election campaign, and called on the council to take an active role in enacting relevant legislation and securing budget support.
The key agenda items covered establishing a monitoring framework for district administration and council activities and creating a deliberative democracy forum (participatory governance); setting up a public nursing home for the elderly in Gwangjin-gu and improving the rights and working conditions of care workers (welfare); enacting an ordinance to support residents in unsafe housing and expanding neighborhood management offices (residential welfare); legislating the use of reusable containers at local festivals (environment); enacting a framework ordinance on the social solidarity economy (social solidarity economy); introducing a new ordinance to support community revitalization (community); and guaranteeing the right to self-determination at end of life and reforming public funeral procedures (end-of-life care).
Representatives of the civic groups urged the council to take the lead. "The Gwangjin-gu Council has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the campaign pledges drawn up to reflect residents' wishes do not remain empty slogans but are actually incorporated into district governance," they said, calling on the assembly to spearhead the enactment and revision of ordinances directly affecting residents' lives and to secure the necessary budget allocations.
Speaker Ko expressed his appreciation for the groups' efforts. "I am deeply grateful to the civic organizations for putting forward such valuable policy proposals in the areas of resident autonomy, welfare, the environment and community recovery," he said, adding that the 26 proposals "contain exactly what is needed for the sustainable development of Gwangjin-gu and the improvement of residents' well-being."
Ko pledged to move forward in stages. "We will pursue ordinance enactment and revision step by step, starting with the proposals the council can accommodate, and make every effort through consultations with the executive branch to ensure that budget resources are allocated where they are needed most," he said. "We will continue to communicate with residents and civil society and carry out a council agenda in which residents are the true owners."
The Gwangjin-gu Council plans to have each standing committee carefully review the opinions raised at the forum and actively incorporate them into future legislative activities, including the introduction of ordinance bills, council inquiries into district administration and budget deliberations.
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