Osan City Hosts Civic Ombudsman Capacity-Building Workshop

Osan City announced that it held a civic ombudsman workshop on the 21st at the City Hall situation room to build consensus through civic participation and communication.

The workshop, attended by Mayor Kwak Sang-wook of Osan City and 20 civic ombudsmen, consisted of two sessions. In the first session, an overview of this year's city administration and briefings on seven major projects were presented, followed by Q&A.; In the second session, training was provided on methods for reporting citizens' inconveniences through Facebook, transforming the workshop into a communication platform via SNS.

Mayor Kwak Sang-wook, attending the workshop, said, "The Facebook activities of civic ombudsmen actively working in the field seem to be well-known to citizens," and added, "Thanks to the passionate efforts of civic ombudsmen, many reports of citizens' inconveniences and suggestions for city administration have been addressed. I ask that you continue to make further efforts to build a Osan where citizens are happy."

Cho Ok-soo, a civic ombudsman and chairperson of the residents' representative council of Segyo 1 Complex, said, "We will actively utilize SNS such as Facebook to promptly resolve citizens' inconveniences and actively leverage this to strengthen the capacity and competence of civic ombudsmen in performing their duties."

Through the passionate activities of civic ombudsmen working on the ground, reports and suggestions for city administration increased threefold from 52 cases in 2012 to 151 cases last year.

Additionally, through real-time Facebook-based suggestions and reports on city administration, various issues closely related to residents' daily lives such as construction, traffic, green spaces and parks, environment, and sanitation have been resolved swiftly, resulting in increased satisfaction with city administration.