Naju Mayor Yoon Byungtae Builds Trust with Residents through Communication and Empathy

Concluding Dialogue with Residents: 344 Suggestions Collected
Explaining This Year’s City Administration Plans and Local Issues by District

Yoon Byungtae, mayor of Naju, started conversations with residents in Songwol-dong and Bannam-myeon on the 5th of last month and concluded the 2025 town and township resident dialogues on the 27th in Noan-myeon and Munpyeong-myeon. Mayor Yoon is taking a commemorative photo after finishing the dialogue with residents of Munpyeong-myeon. Provided by Naju City

Naju Mayor Yoon Byungtae concluded the 2025 schedule of town hall meetings with residents in Eup, Myeon, and Dong districts on the 27th of last month, ending with Munpyeong-myeon.

During these meetings, Mayor Yoon listened attentively to residents’ concerns and suggestions regarding local issues, providing sincere answers and proposing solutions. He also reinforced residents’ trust in the city administration by explaining major achievements from last year that had a significant impact, the operational direction for this year, and the status of handling suggestions from each district in the previous year.

The town hall meetings began on the 5th of last month in Songwol-dong and Bannam-myeon, and were held over a total of 11 days, concluding on the 27th with Noan-myeon and Munpyeong-myeon.

Mayor Yoon highlighted ten major innovative achievements made possible by citizens’ support, including the nation’s first designation as a global innovation regulatory free zone for DC power transmission industry, expansion of overseas exports of agricultural and marine products, a record number of visitors at the 2024 Naju Yeongsangang Festival, the Naju Global Energy Forum 2024, and the operation of Jeonnam’s first integrated odor control center.

He also outlined the 2025 city administration strategies and detailed policies, such as sustainable agro-bio development, establishing a high-tech science city as a hub for new energy industries, ushering in an era of five million annual tourists to Naju, fostering a prestigious educational city for future talents, and ensuring welfare for all generations, thereby increasing residents’ consensus on the city’s future vision.

Notably, welfare initiatives with high public impact received enthusiastic responses from residents, such as the ‘Basic Birth Allowance’ providing 200,000 won per month (including 100,000 won from Jeonnam Province) for children born from January 2024 until age 18, the ‘Public Small Wedding’ program offering up to 5 million won for free wedding venue rental, beauty services, and wedding photography, expanded shingles vaccination support (age lowered from 60 to 50), Naju-ae Learning Voucher (increased from 3,000 to 5,000 recipients), and the Women Farmers’ Happiness Voucher (age limit raised from 75 to 80).

The city carefully addressed a total of 344 concerns and suggestions from residents through Q&A sessions between Mayor Yoon and residents in 20 districts. By department, the Department of Safety, Urban, and Construction, which handles small-scale development projects such as village road and farm road expansion and drainage maintenance, had the most cases at 201 (58%). This was followed by the Department of Civil Administration and Transportation with 38 cases (11%), the Department of Tourism, Culture, and Green Spaces with 37 cases (11%), the Department of Welfare and Environment with 28 cases (8%), the Department of Future Strategic Industries with 18 cases (5%), the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food with 16 cases (5%), the Public Health Center with 3 cases (1%), and the Bitgaram Facility Management Office with 3 cases (1%).

The city plans to further increase resident satisfaction by promptly taking action after on-site review of suggestions, reporting follow-up plans through a town hall meeting, and sharing final results one-on-one for post-management.

Mayor Yoon Byungtae stated, “We will thoroughly review all valuable opinions shared by residents who attended the meetings despite their busy schedules, and promptly reflect them in the second supplementary budget.”

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