JEONNAM-GWANGJU — Balanced development, the slogan that carried the administrative merger of Jeonnam and Gwangju, is being tested barely two months after the combined city took office. Council members from the southwestern region have gone public with their objections over Mayor Min Hyung-bae's office attendance, the placement of political appointees and the selection of vice mayors, saying the tilt toward Gwangju has become real.
Fifteen council members from the southwestern region, including Choi Sun-kook of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Mokpo 1, held a press conference on the 14th at the Jeonnam building of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City Council and sharply criticized how Mayor Min is running the city. "The case for the merger and its legitimacy rest first on balance and second on balance," they said, urging the mayor to divide his working hours evenly among the government buildings, redeploy political appointees and name a central-government official as vice mayor at the Jeonnam building.
The first issue the members raised was the concentration of the mayor's working hours at one building.
According to data submitted by the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City, Min carried out most of his duties at the Gwangju building between July 1, the first day of the merged city, and Sept. 9. Excluding the four days when the council held plenary sessions, he reported to the Jeonnam building on only 10 days and to the eastern building on just five, the members said.
The members noted that even in early September, when public sentiment in the southwestern region had soured over the medical school issue, Min visited the Jeonnam building only once. "With demands pouring in to listen to a public deeply aggrieved, where on earth was the mayor?" they said.
The placement of political appointees also came under scrutiny.
Of the 20 political appointees currently serving, only two are assigned to the Jeonnam building and three to the eastern building, according to the southwestern members. The remaining 15 work at the Gwangju building, they said.
They argued that a sense of deprivation in southwestern communities is deepening after it emerged that one of the appointees assigned to the Jeonnam building commutes from Gwangju. The members stressed that political appointees are responsible for conveying key policies and local issues and for handling political coordination. "Having just one person to genuinely listen to public sentiment in the southwest means the mayor is choosing to shut his eyes and ears to the region, does it not?" they said.
Some argue that the southwestern political post must go to someone with a background in politics who can serve as a bridge between local issues and the council.
The most sensitive issue is the selection of vice mayors. The members said Min had initially stated he would station two vice mayors at the Jeonnam building, one of them a central-government official. In the final reorganization plan, however, both vice mayor posts at the Jeonnam building were changed to local government officials, they said.
The members also questioned whether Baek Seung-joo and Yoon Nan-sil, both named as prospective vice mayors at the Jeonnam building, reflected a Gwangju-centered selection. They noted that Baek had been floated as a candidate in the by-election for the Gwangju Gwangsan B seat left vacant by Min's election as mayor, and that Yoon is a former member of the Gwangju Metropolitan Council.
"A city administration marked by a refusal to communicate and by self-righteousness is turning the southwest and the Jeonnam building into empty shells," the members said. "To untangle the difficulties of these early days of the merger, the mayor must listen to public sentiment in the southwest, even now, and show it through action." They added: "If the neglect of the southwest continues, we will use every means available to us as council members to check the Min Hyung-bae administration, in order to defend the case for the Jeonnam-Gwangju administrative merger and its legitimacy."
