Gyeonggi-do to Decide Suwon Military Airport Relocation Through Public Deliberation with Resident Participation

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province will decide on the relocation of Suwon Air Base through a public deliberation project involving residents.

On the 3rd, the province announced that it held a public-private cooperation committee meeting in accordance with the 'Gyeonggi Province Ordinance on the Promotion of Public Deliberation' and resolved to conduct public deliberation on the 'relocation of Suwon Air Base.'

This public deliberation project was the first to be held since the ordinance was promulgated in January this year.

With the decision to proceed with the public deliberation project, the province will establish a public deliberation promotion team composed of private experts within this month and operate it until the end of the year.

The public deliberation promotion team will collaboratively decide on matters such as ▲designing the operation methods and procedures of the deliberation forum ▲composition of forum participants ▲public disclosure and promotion of the forum ▲collecting residents' opinions related to the deliberation ▲deriving policy recommendations.

The 100 resident participants who will take part in the deliberative meetings will also be recruited through proportional allocation by gender, region, and age to represent residents' opinions effectively.

The specific public deliberation process includes ▲resident opinion surveys (1,000 general residents, twice) ▲expert workshops (twice) ▲providing preliminary information and learning for resident participants ▲deliberative meetings (twice, on October 29 and November 12). After directly reporting the deliberation results to residents both online and offline, related follow-up measures will be prepared and implemented.

One topic will be selected annually for public deliberation, and the next topic will be decided in the first half of next year.

Previously, through a topic selection advisory meeting composed of 10 private experts recommended by various departments, three candidates were selected as public deliberation topics based on urgency, significance, timeliness, and issue relevance among matters causing severe conflicts between local governments: ▲relocation of Suwon Air Base ▲enhancing resident acceptance for the installation of resource recovery facilities ▲measures to secure the rights and interests of platform workers.

Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Dong-yeon proposed the relocation of Suwon Air Base as the final candidate among these three topics to the public-private cooperation committee, which acts as the public deliberation committee.

Kim Young-chul, Director of the Communication and Cooperation Bureau of the province, emphasized, "Preventing and resolving public conflicts is a legal obligation of the province," adding, "We will actively strive to design and promote the public deliberation process thoroughly to contribute to resolving the issue of the 'relocation of Suwon Air Base.'"

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