Opinion "Citizens' Voice as Starting Point for Administration"…Pyeongtaek City Significantly Strengthens Civic Petition Functions
The matter that all local governments and public offices pay the most attention to is citizen petitions. Accordingly, kindness training is provided to staff handling citizen petition inquiries, focusing on service improvement and methods for resolving complaints. The main emphasis is on building trust with citizens through an empathetic approach. Of course, various response methods for malicious petitions that cause serious difficulties are also included.
Along with kindness training in civic petition administrative services aimed at impressing citizens, ongoing monitoring of petitions is conducted to check the friendliness of responding public officials. Nevertheless, complaints about petitions continue. Therefore, deliberation on how to provide courteous, prompt, and responsible responses to citizen petitions continues.
Pyeongtaek City has taken active steps in response. The city is pursuing an organizational restructuring that significantly strengthens civic petition functions. Mayor Choi Won-yong announced that the city will significantly strengthen civic petition functions to resolve citizens' petitions more promptly and responsibly. The city decided to expand and reorganize civic petition functions that were previously under the Administration and Self-Governance Bureau, establishing a new "Civic Petition Service Bureau." The city announced it will place the "One-Stop Petition and Service Division," "Civic Petition Service Division," "Building Permit Division," and "Housing Division" under the Civic Petition Service Bureau. (Related article: News S, 11th, "Pyeongtaek City Establishes Civic Petition Service Bureau to Prioritize Resolution of Citizens' Needs") On the 8th, the city also announced for legislation an "Amendment to Part of Pyeongtaek City Administrative Organization and Personnel Ordinance" containing this content.
Mayor Choi Won-yong has consistently emphasized making citizens' voices the starting point of administration. In his inauguration speech, describing himself as a field-oriented person, he stated, "Within a single line of a citizen petition lies the life of a citizen, and only by going to the field can the essence of a problem be seen." Mayor Choi's statement that civic petitions should be valued like gold and answers must be found in the field is entirely correct. All public officials should take to heart and inscribe in their hearts his words that "the reason for the existence of public offices is citizens."
The newly established One-Stop Petition and Service Division in this organizational restructuring is the main department of the Civic Petition Service Bureau. As Mayor Choi's signature campaign promise, it handles everything from petition reception to processing at once. From citizens' perspective, petitions can be processed more conveniently. Until now, complicated petitions required inconvenience as citizens had to search for various departments and responsible officials.
In particular, the Building Permit Division and Housing Division, which have handled duties closely related to citizens' lives such as building permits, forest land and agricultural land conversion, multi-unit housing management and residential welfare, general housing construction, and signage, will now fall under the Civic Petition Service Bureau, reducing the inconvenience of citizens having to visit multiple departments and enabling more efficient petition processing.
"Petitions are not merely administrative tasks to be processed but the starting point of city administration where citizens' voices can be heard most closely," and Mayor Choi Won-yong's "citizen-centered petition service" is hoped to be established starting from Pyeongtaek and spread to all local governments, institutions, and public enterprises in our country, and further to the private sector.