Dobong-gu 14 Neighborhood Resident Autonomy Committees Hold Online and Offline Resident General Meetings

Scheduled Neighborhood General Assemblies by Dong Following the Launch of Neighborhood Residents' Autonomy Associations from June to August... To Prevent COVID-19 Spread, Assemblies and Result Sharing Meetings to be Held Both Online and Offline... Residents Directly Vote to Prioritize Autonomy Plans Addressing Village Issues and Development Strategies

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Dobong-gu (Mayor Dongjin Lee) will hold a ‘Resident General Assembly’ in all neighborhoods (dong) this year, where residents directly identify village issues and find solutions.

As part of its resident participation policy, Dobong-gu announced that it has transformed the ‘Resident Autonomy Committee,’ which had remained a simple advisory body, into a ‘Resident Autonomy Association’ where residents hold substantial authority related to village policies and budgets. This year, the transition to Resident Autonomy Associations has been completed in all 14 neighborhoods (dong) of Dobong-gu.

The ‘Resident General Assembly’ is the highest decision-making body at the neighborhood level open to all local residents. It is a forum to deliberate and decide on autonomous plans that address daily life issues closely related to residents and development measures.

With the full implementation of the Resident Autonomy Associations, each neighborhood’s association in Dobong-gu will conduct village surveys and collect residents’ opinions by committee, then decide on agenda items to be submitted to the Resident General Assembly. These village issues will have their priorities determined through a ‘Resident Vote’ during the General Assembly.

The ‘Resident Vote’ is open to all residents of the respective neighborhood. To ensure the public nature of village issues, the district plans to determine the priority of agenda items by requiring participation of at least 0.5% of the neighborhood’s residents and approval by more than half of the attendees.

In particular, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 this year, Dobong-gu will conduct both small-scale offline face-to-face resident voting and online resident voting using K-Voting (Central Election Commission), Google, and Naver surveys in parallel.

After the online and offline resident votes, the priorities of the village issues decided will be shared with residents through neighborhood-specific result sharing meetings. These result sharing meetings will also be held simultaneously as YouTube online live broadcasts and small-scale offline face-to-face events. Starting from Chang 2-dong on June 18, the meetings will be held in all 14 neighborhoods according to each neighborhood’s schedule. Detailed schedules for the resident votes and result sharing meetings can be confirmed at the respective neighborhood Resident Autonomy Associations.

Mayor Dongjin Lee of Dobong-gu emphasized, “Despite COVID-19, I hope the efforts of the Resident Autonomy Associations, which are trying various forms of autonomy, will bear great fruit. I will spare no support so that grassroots democracy, where residents solve local problems by themselves, is established through the Resident Autonomy Associations, and that these associations can be reborn as representative resident organizations with local representativeness.”

Meanwhile, Dobong-gu began transitioning neighborhoods to Resident Autonomy Associations starting with six neighborhoods in 2017: Ssangmun 1-dong, Banghak 1-dong, Banghak 2-dong, Banghak 3-dong, Chang 2-dong, and Chang 5-dong. In December 2019, three neighborhoods?Chang 4-dong, Dobong 1-dong, and Dobong 2-dong?were transitioned, followed by five neighborhoods in December 2020: Ssangmun 2-dong, Ssangmun 3-dong, Ssangmun 4-dong, Chang 1-dong, and Chang 3-dong, completing the transition of all neighborhoods.