On Jan. 22, 2020, at 4:11 p.m., Suwon Mayor Yeom Tae-young took the first step to respond to COVID-19 through his social network service. It was the Lunar New Year holiday, and other heads of regional and local municipalities were resting at home. But Yeom foresaw the ripple effect of the coronavirus.

“A suspected patient who visited Wuhan, China and has fever or respiratory symptoms must first seek counseling and treatment at a screening clinic, not a hospital emergency room,” he said when the coronavirus first broke out. On Jan. 23, an article was posted that the operation of four screening clinics in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, had begun.

Since then, he has immersed himself in countermeasures and released around 3,000 urgent announcements related to the coronavirus.

Yeom is also known to have played a leading role in the Middle East respiratory syndrome and COVID-19 crises. His measures against MERS and COVID-19 have had an influential effect on local governments in Korea. The MERS white paper he made became a textbook for the Korean government. 

Earlier in 2015, when the MERS outbreak occurred, Mayor Yeom quickly disclosed information related to the virus, saying, “It is important to provide citizens with correct information related to MERS quickly.”

Yeom’s key achievement during his term was to make Suwon a designated “special city.” His quest began when he was the first of 226 local government leaders to be elected as a supreme council member of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea in 2020.

Early this year, four regions with a population of more than 1 million -- Goyang, Suwon, Yongin and Changwon -- were promoted to special cities with the revision of the Local Autonomy Act for the first time in 32 years.

“The launch of the special city was a precious moment when the local government was reorganized from the top-down to the bottom-up through the voluntary efforts of citizens,” Yeom said. “Suwon special city will serve as an excellent ‘test bed’ for expanding its autonomy.”

He stressed that the related legislation needs to be carried out quickly for the special cities.

Mayor Yeom is a three-term mayor. Since he took office in July 2010, he has led the Suwon City government for 12 years. His key policies have always been centered on people.

Rather than making decisions focusing on large-scale development or special national projects, he decided to establish an administration that helped people.

Cooperative governance is considered the first of Suwon’s achievements. The city established a system to make wise decisions by allowing citizens to directly express their opinions and reach a consensus on conflicting ideas in different circumstances.

A representative example is the resolution of the disputed Gwanggyo water source protection area. The dispute goes back 48 years, between those who want to preserve the environment, and those who want regulations to be relaxed. The area was an environmental protection area that required protection, but was also a home for residents.

The Suwon City government tried to solve the problem by negotiating with citizens. A council to solve this issue was launched in 2017, and conducted about 30 meetings, discussions, on-site visits and surveys over seven months. As a result, the city of Suwon came to a resolution at the end of 2018, lifting the minimum area regulation while maintaining the area’s status as a water source protection zone.

This problem-solving experience through governance has developed in various forms since. Suwon City has set up a communication booth to collect citizens’ opinions about policy concepts. It operates a “citizen discussion” platform where citizens, the administration, and parliament can communicate on the spot.

Special consideration for the socially disadvantaged also took root in Suwon. Suwon City converted 703 fixed-term workers, dispatched workers and service workers into regular workers between 2014 and 2019. This was a measure to help resolve polarization by improving employees’ safety and treatment, and quality of public services.

Suwon City pushed for social changes to improve the working conditions for public housing service workers. It revised the Housing Ordinance in June 2016 to lay the groundwork for installing rest facilities for apartment service workers. In January 2020, detailed installation standards were also established. Thanks to the installation of rest facilities for apartment service workers for the first time in the country, rest facilities in 27 apartment complexes in Suwon have been recorded so far. Also, the working hours of cleaning workers have been pushed from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. since 2020.

In addition, Suwon is trying to protect human rights throughout the city by establishing a human rights commission in January 2019, becoming the first basic local government to do so.

Over the past 11 years, Suwon City has focused on developing citizens’ knowledge by promoting various projects to establish its identity as a humanities city. Twelve new libraries have been opened, allowing all residents access to a library within 10 minutes’ walking distance. Unmanned smart libraries are operated at each of the six subway stations, and Gwanggyo has a space where people can read books in the forest. 

By Shin Ji-hye and Park Joung-kyu
(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)
(fob140@heraldcorp.com)