[Interview] Jung Won-oh, Seongdong District Mayor: "Parking Safety Number Service Starts from Resident Complaints"

Since 2015, improving resident trust through direct text communication with residents who have disclosed their phone numbers

‘Safe Parking Number Service’ pilot project promoted through public-private agreement in response to residents’ text complaints and suggestions

“Many of Seongdong-gu’s innovative cases, including the Safe Parking Number Service, come from residents’ complaints.”

Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said that the fresh administrative ideas of Seongdong-gu ultimately come from communication with residents. Mayor Jung’s day begins by checking messages received from the previous night until morning. He disclosed his phone number during the 2015 local elections, intending for residents to contact the mayor directly anytime about issues around them that the district office should resolve.

Mayor Jung said, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we received up to 100 complaint texts a day, with an average of about 20.” The messages are categorized by issue and reviewed by each department, with the final confirmation made directly by Mayor Jung. If necessary, multiple departments hold meetings together. Issues handled this way are responded to residents within 48 hours.

At the end of last November, Mayor Jung received a text from a resident. It mentioned that a detective on a certain broadcast advised not to leave phone numbers in parking lots because they could be misused for crimes. After considering this resident suggestion, on February 21, he signed a business agreement for the ‘Safe Parking Number Service Pilot Project’ with SMTNT (CEO Kim Moon-sik), a related company, to prevent phone numbers placed in vehicles from being misused for crimes.

The Safe Parking Number Service uses the ‘Ansim Number Moba’ app to issue a 12-digit safe number starting with 050, allowing calls without exposing personal information. By simply dialing the number, anyone?including seniors and people with disabilities?can easily make calls. Also, even if the safe number is collected without permission, spam and advertising messages are not received. Mayor Jung emphasized, “All answers are on the ground. Whether you can find the answer depends on how deeply you look into the problem.”

As an example, he explained, “During the height of COVID-19 testing, residents lined up for two to three hours and complained, ‘We might catch COVID while waiting.’ We could have just asked for understanding due to the sudden infectious disease situation, but we kept thinking. We wondered if we could have people take a number ticket like at a bank. After some thought, we introduced a system on the district website to check the order, and the lines disappeared. This is the background that allows us to turn the same complaint into innovation.”

He also recalled, “Once, a resident sent a text with a photo of a fist-sized hole in the road, saying, ‘I wish you would come see this.’ When I went to check, it was a large road sinkhole big enough for a car tire to fall into,” and he sighed with relief. Such road sinkholes can lead to serious accidents if left unattended, so last year, to prevent sinkhole accidents, a joint exploration of underground road spaces was conducted and repairs were completed.

Last year was a year with an unusually high number of incidents and accidents. When heavy snow falls, residents’ disaster awareness rises, leading to various complaints ranging from places needing snow removal to reports of buildings at risk of collapse.

Believing that safety is the foundation of a city, since September last year, Mayor Jung has conducted a survey of 5,279 semi-basement households in the area. Based on existing administrative data, 14 architects visited all semi-basement homes in person to examine the site terrain and blueprints. Excluding 1,456 unoccupied or demolished households, grading was conducted for 3,823 households. The district plans to start installing flood prevention facilities in semi-basement homes and will carry out residential environment improvement projects for vulnerable homes such as semi-basements and rooftop units over the next four years. Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “Communicating with residents via text for eight years has improved problem-solving capabilities and brought administration and residents closer. These efforts build trust one by one, expand resident participation, and lead to genuine cooperative governance.”