▲ Guri City / Mayor Ahn Seung-nam

Often called as the man of yellow shirt, Guri City Mayor Ahn Seung-nam says “What makes public servants great in this day and age starts from seeing the importance of communication, diversity and democracy. If public servants focused on results and were led by a small group of talented people in the past, today we should be the media to invite citizens to the core of building our goals and policies.”

Since taking the steering wheel a year ago, Ahn and his team have worked hard to make a better and a happier Guri City under the motto ‘Citizen-Centered and Happier Guri’ and has been pushing forward their zeal to achieve 5 city goals: safe city, economically vibrant city, education city, cultural city and welfare city.  

Some of the projects being implemented at the moment are: completion of Byeollae Line (line No.8) by 2022, extension of the Line No.6 and Line No.9, stopover of GTX-B at Galmae, introducing a new traffic signal system between Guri City Hall and Guri Amsa Bridge by 2022, increased number of No. 75 bus toward Seokgye station, introducing the 75-1 bus line via Galmae and Bonghwa Mountain station, introducing 2 chartered buses toward Jamsil during rush hour and a one double decked bus No.1680, introducing M bus between Galmae and Gangnam and also between Galmae and Gangbyeon. 

Some of the projects related to resident convenience are: building a parking lot that can solve the illegal parking issues around Inchang Central Park and Kunwon Boulevard by 2021, another parking lot that can accommodate 437 vehicles around Guri Traditional Market by 2020, installing CCTV exclusively monitoring illegal waste dumping, urbanization of the new towns, and introducing more welfare facilities. 

As for the long term goals, Guri City is working on building a futuristic smart city with particular focus on techno-valley and bio and health industries by 2030. For this, the city is gradually lifting the various development restrictions that have slowed down the advancement of the city for many years. Also introducing is the local currency named ‘Guri Love Card’ which is expected to activate regional economy while relocating the Guri Agro-Fishery Market to a new area in order to make it a landmark of the city. 

As for the welfare, Guri City recently was designated as a city to have Women’s Job Center and has secured 300 million won budget from the central and provincial governments; the Guri City Women’s Center is to be completed by 2021 as a result and it is expected to be used for job searching and training, education and community activities for women.

Transparency and trust
Transparency and trust are the two core philosophies of Ahn and his team when it comes to administration. In other words, everything must be planned and implemented nothing but for the convenience of citizens. Every submitted document to the mayor, for example, must be written ‘citizen’s opinion’ in the designated section. 

“Also important for us, as our citizen’s servants, is to secure budgets from the central government from which we already have secured around 5 billion won for 10 projects including renewal of traditional markets and alley markets” says Ahn.

At the administration appraisal carried out by Gyeonggi Province last year, Guri City swept 17 prizes including a number of the best prizes in reflective categories.