Mayor-elect holds press briefing at Busan City Hall and city council on Monday

Vows not to reverse predecessor's projects out of political spite

Says retractable-roof stadium at North Port will move forward once port authority bill clears Assembly

Busan Mayor-elect Jeon Jae-soo speaks at a press briefing at Busan City Hall on Monday. [Yonhap]
Busan Mayor-elect Jeon Jae-soo speaks at a press briefing at Busan City Hall on Monday. [Yonhap]

Busan Mayor-elect Jeon Jae-soo said the outcome of the June 3 local elections — in which he won the mayoralty while the People Power Party secured a majority in the city council — amounted to "a citizen's order not to let Jeon Jae-soo act alone," and pledged to govern cooperatively with the opposition-controlled assembly.

Speaking at a press briefing at Busan City Hall and the Busan City Council on Monday, Jeon said he would practice "the political virtues of concession and compromise — yielding boldly where yielding is right, but pushing through where it must be done." He added that he aimed to build "the most exemplary model of cooperative governance in the country."

On the allocation of council leadership posts and standing committee chairmanships, Jeon said he understood that "guidelines will be drawn up at the Democratic Party's Busan winners' convention on Thursday," and expressed his preference that standing committee chairmanships be distributed to the Democratic Party. "Receiving a ceremonial vice-speaker post is not the right approach," he said.

Regarding projects initiated under his predecessor, Mayor Park Heong-joon — including a planned Pompidou Center branch and the reconstruction of Sajik Baseball Stadium — Jeon pledged not to reverse them out of political grievance. "There will be no overturning of things just because I feel differently or because something was said during the campaign," he said, promising to work through proper procedures with stakeholders, civil servants and experts.

On the proposed retractable-roof dome stadium at North Port, Jeon said he would move forward "as soon as the Port Authority Act, which has cleared a subcommittee of the National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, passes the full standing committee and the plenary session." He projected that if the port authority absorbed 44 percent of the stadium's 1.3 trillion won (about $855 million) construction cost — roughly 630 billion won ($414 million) in land value — the remaining 56 percent could be covered by a private-sector business model generating its own revenue.

Jeon added that he was considering a public share offering tied to the North Port dome project so that citizens could benefit directly, and vowed to make North Port "a space Busan citizens can take the greatest pride in." He also said he would find other ways to protect the livelihoods of merchants near Sajik Baseball Stadium.

Jeon said he expects more than 5 million foreign tourists to visit Busan this year and outlined plans to use policy funds for large-scale renovations of accommodation facilities in western Busan, so that visitors who spend their days in eastern Busan would stay overnight in the west. He said a dedicated task force would be formed to pursue aggressive marketing targeting travel agencies and to develop tourism storytelling about Busan from a foreign visitor's perspective.

Asked whether he would bring Ha Jung-woo — who lost the Buk-gu Gap by-election — into his administration, Jeon said he understood Ha had applied to become a local party chapter chair on Monday and questioned "whether it is possible to look after the district while doing other work at the same time." On political appointments and the replacement of heads of 12 affiliated agencies set to resign en masse at the end of this month, he said the transition committee would build a talent pool and work to minimize any vacancy period.

Jeon said he planned to meet with former mayors, including Park Heong-joon, before his July 1 inauguration to learn from their experience running the city, and would also sit down with former National Assembly Speakers Kim Hyong-o and Chung Eui-hwa.


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