Gwanak-gu district mayor takes 'mobile district office' on the road

Seoul's Gwanak-gu District Mayor Park Jun-hee announced Thursday that he has launched a "mobile district office" initiative in his third term to bring local government closer to residents.

The district kicked off the program in Sillim-dong on Wednesday, with plans to visit all 21 neighborhoods — one or two per day — through Nov. 3. At each stop, residents are invited to speak freely about local policy needs and everyday concerns.

Gwanak-gu has been expanding its community outreach since Park took office. In November 2018, he opened what the district says was the country's first café-style open mayor's office on the ground floor of the district building, holding weekly meetings with residents. In July 2019, the district launched the mobile office program to reach residents who find it difficult to visit the building in person, and later introduced an online channel allowing residents to participate in district affairs around the clock, 365 days a year.

At Wednesday's inaugural session in Sillim-dong, residents raised a range of local issues including parking, redevelopment, subway noise, bus stop placement and road safety. Park explained the current status and future plans for each item and worked with residents to explore solutions. On calls to expand public parking and redevelop areas dense with aging housing, Park said the district would incorporate parking garage expansion into its medium- and long-term plans and would "actively support the swift advancement of redevelopment and reconstruction projects through the district mayor's directly supervised rapid support team for improvement projects."

Feedback collected at each session will be reviewed by the relevant departments, and residents who submitted suggestions will be notified of the outcome. The district will also maintain a tracking card for each item until it is fully resolved.

"Receiving the special prize at the OIDP Participatory Democracy Award — a first for Korea — is itself the fruit of the community-building and collaborative governance we have pursued together with residents," Park said. "I will listen directly to residents' voices in the field, find answers to local problems, and build a better Gwanak where those precious opinions translate into real change in daily life."

The Participatory Democracy Award is presented by the Observatory of Local Democracy and Participation (OIDP), an international network under the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). It recognizes outstanding examples of participatory democracy at the local government level and promotes their spread internationally. This year's competition drew 188 entries from 41 countries — a record high — and 40 cases advanced to the final round after an initial screening. Gwanak-gu's citizen-led manifesto governance model claimed the special prize following a final review and public vote.