Cheonan City to Hold Personnel Hearing for Urban Corporation President

Scheduled to Be Held in January Next Year

Cheonan City in Chungnam Province has decided to hold a personnel hearing for the president of Cheonan Urban Corporation in January next year.

According to the city on the 15th, the executive recommendation committee of Cheonan Urban Corporation began recruiting candidates for the position in September, as the former president's term was scheduled to end in October.

Through the recruitment process, Mr. A, a current executive at Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), was selected as the candidate and the city decided to submit a personnel hearing request to the Cheonan City Council.

The personnel hearing is at the discretion of the head of the local government under the Local Autonomy Act, and this will be the first time Cheonan City is holding such a hearing since the revision of the act and the enactment of the relevant ordinance.

The city made this decision following criticism that it was appointing a candidate without a personnel hearing, even though the ordinance for such hearings was enacted in May after being proposed by Bok Ayoung, a member of the Democratic Party.

According to the ordinance, if the head of the local government submits a personnel hearing request to the city council, the council must complete the hearing within 20 days of submission.

The personnel hearing is scheduled to be held in January next year.

Cheonan Mayor Park Sangdon said, "I hope this will be a substantial personnel hearing that can evaluate the candidate's qualifications and work abilities," adding, "We will thoroughly review the results of this hearing and consider expanding it to other affiliated organizations in the future."

Meanwhile, Mr. A applied for the position of president of Cheonan Urban Corporation while still employed and has not yet undergone the honorably retirement process or the employment screening by the Public Official Ethics Committee. As the retirement and employment screening processes take about two months, the president's position is expected to remain vacant for at least two months.