Yongin City Responds to Citizen Petitions with Just 100 Signatures

[Asia Economy (Yongin) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province will significantly lower the response criteria for online citizen petitions starting next month.

Yongin City previously considered a petition valid and responded only if more than 4,000 people agreed within 30 days, but from next month, they announced on the 10th that responses will begin if more than 100 people agree.

The city explained that this measure is to communicate more actively with citizens and reflect various citizen opinions in city administration.

The city expects that this measure will activate petitions.

The specific response criteria are as follows: if a petition receives more than 100 agreements within 30 days, the head of the responsible department will respond; if more than 1,000 agree, the director of the bureau will respond; and if more than 4,000 agree, the mayor will respond.

If the city judges that a quick response is needed after petition registration, it will also provide a service that immediately sends a notification message guiding citizens to use the SNS civil complaint window or the National Petition system.

Earlier, when the city introduced citizen petitions in April last year, it set the petition establishment criterion at more than 4,000 agreements to prevent indiscriminate petitions.

However, this criterion was considered too high, and the need for adjustment was raised.

In fact, since the city opened the citizen petition window in April last year, the total number of petition registrations was 481, but the number of petitions established was 5, with about 50,000 agreements.

Mayor Baek Gun-gi said, "We have significantly lowered the petition establishment criteria to respond to more citizens' opinions," and added, "Since the diverse voices of citizens can change the future of Yongin City, we ask for the participation and interest of many citizens."

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