Yangcheon Mayor Lee Gijae Sees 98.6% Positive Resolution of 1,151 Cases Four Years After Going Public With Personal Phone Number

One Text Is All It Takes...Response Within Three Days

On February 5, Lee Gijae, Mayor of Yangcheon District in Seoul, announced that the "Mayor’s Direct Text Message Service," under which he made his personal mobile phone number public and receives civil complaints directly from residents, has delivered clear results four years after its launch. Since the service was introduced in August 2022, a total of 1,151 complaints have been received, 98.6% of which have either been resolved or are currently being processed.

Yangcheon District Mayor Lee Gijae inspects the Anyangcheon complaint site with residents. Provided by Yangcheon District.

Residents of Yangcheon District can text the mayor 24 hours a day, regardless of time and place, about everyday inconveniences such as damaged paving blocks, streetlights that are out, curbstones that obstruct pedestrian traffic, and illegal dumping of garbage. The messages received are checked directly by the mayor and then forwarded to the relevant departments, and the system is operated so that the team leader of the responsible department informs the complainant of the result within three days.

By category, there were 234 cases (20.3%) related to parks and green spaces, 207 cases (18.0%) related to roads and transportation, 134 cases (11.6%) related to health and welfare, and 123 cases (10.7%) related to housing and construction. Most of the requests were for improvements to everyday inconveniences, such as cracking down on illegal parking, replacing streetlights, and installing speed bumps.

Beginning this year, the district has also launched a "Resident Inconvenience Management System." Of the 293 complaints received through channels such as visits to community service centers, meetings of professional organizations, and gatherings at senior centers, 175 have been processed. At a small park in Mok 3-dong, where protruding curbstones raised concerns about falls, the district conducted an on-site inspection, then gently leveled the curbstones and applied anti-slip treatment. It subsequently decided to reflect wheelchair and stroller routes from the design stage whenever parks are renovated.

Since the launch of the 8th popularly elected administration, the district has collected approximately 440,000 opinions from residents through various complaint channels. For suggestions raised at neighborhood work briefing sessions, the mayor personally visits the sites to seek solutions.

Mayor Lee Gijae of Yangcheon District said, "Just as a sip of water in a parched desert is more precious than a lump of gold, improving present inconveniences rather than presenting rosy blueprints for the future is the kind of administration that enriches residents’ lives," adding, "We will continue to listen closely to voices from the field, carefully identify and resolve even minor inconveniences, and do our utmost to ensure these efforts lead to changes that residents can truly feel."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.