Assemblywoman Kim Jeongrim Calls for Integrated Management of Smart Agriculture and the Old Andong Station Project
Amid Andong City's push for future strategic projects, the city council has strongly called for performance verification and the establishment of control systems. Given the large-scale fiscal投入, council members argue that the city must prove actual effectiveness before prioritizing implementation speed.
At the first plenary session of the 264th extraordinary meeting of the Andong City Council held on the 6th, Assemblywoman Kim Jeongrim raised smart agriculture policies and the Old Andong Station Culture and Tourism Town development project as key issues in her question to the mayor.
She argued that the city must change the practice of expanding projects without figures and evaluations that citizens can verify, and urged a shift in the overall administrative management approach.
◆ Smart agriculture: demand to prove returns on investment
Assemblywoman Kim pointed out that since 2020, 24.5 billion won has been投入 into the open-field smart agriculture pilot project, yet there is a lack of official data that comprehensively show changes in farm household income, productivity improvements, and cost reduction effects. She stressed that what is needed is not a few selected examples, but a comprehensive and quantified evaluation system.
She also emphasized that, based on the evaluation results, there must be policy feedback that redesigns the methods and structure of support. In other words, instead of simply expanding subsidies, the system should be reorganized around models whose effectiveness has been proven, in order to ensure sustainability.
Regarding the operation of the Korea Future Agricultural Research Institute, into which more than 5.5 billion won of city funds have been投入, she stated that it is necessary to examine whether sufficient external performance evaluation mechanisms are in place and whether research outcomes are actually being connected to the field. She also presented as a task the need for improvements that reflect the local reality, which is centered on elderly and small-scale farmers.
◆ Old Andong Station: call for contingency plans for delays in private investment
On the Old Andong Station Culture and Tourism Town development project, she noted that, compared to the symbolism of the total project cost of 100 billion won, the criteria for judging success have not been clearly shared. She specifically demanded a more transparent explanation of the feasibility of attracting private investment and the risk management plan.
She added that the city also needs to prepare scenarios for how it will adjust the project's scale, phases, and implementation speed if securing private capital is delayed. She urged the establishment of a dedicated organization and an integrated roadmap, arguing that under the current structure, where multiple departments operate in parallel, it is difficult to ensure efficiency and accountability.
Assemblywoman Kim explained that her questions were not intended to否定 the projects themselves, but rather to restore the principles of goal-setting, step-by-step verification, and integrated management.
As fiscal投入 grows, the administration's responsibility to explain also becomes heavier. Attention is now focused on what changes the city council's challenge will bring to Andong City's management of large-scale projects.
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