The transition committee of Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City Mayor-elect Min Hyeong-bae and the Gwangju city government have proposed holding the first plenary session of the new city's assembly at midnight on July 1, the day the city officially launches.
The transition committee and Gwangju city recently asked Park Nam-eon, secretary-general of the Gwangju City Council, to move the opening of the first extraordinary session of the integrated special city assembly forward to midnight on July 1. Park holds the authority to convene the first session.
The mayor-elect's office and the Gwangju city government are concerned that any delay in convening the assembly could disrupt the city's launch. Essential ordinances and regulations governing assembly operations, executive branch organization, legislative activities and education office functions must be enacted the moment the integrated special city comes into being.
The first plenary session had originally been scheduled for 7 a.m. on July 1. In response to those concerns, officials are now reviewing whether to move the opening to midnight — the earliest legally permissible time on the day the integrated assembly is established.
Park plans to gather opinions from all incoming metropolitan assembly members at an orientation on Tuesday before finalizing the opening time.
"The swift election of assembly leadership and passage of essential ordinances on the first day are necessary for the integrated special city's administration to get off to a normal start," Park said. "We will decide whether to open at midnight after hearing from all the members-elect."
The first extraordinary session of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Assembly will be held over two days — July 1 and 2 — at the main chamber of the South Jeolla Provincial Assembly.
The first plenary session, to be held in the fourth-floor chamber of the South Jeolla Provincial Assembly on July 1, is scheduled to proceed in the following order: election of the assembly speaker, determination of the session period, selection of members to sign the plenary minutes, passage of assembly-related ordinances, passage of ordinances submitted by the mayor, passage of ordinances submitted by the superintendent of education, and election of the deputy speaker.
The second plenary session, set for July 2, will open with the election of standing committee chairs, followed by a recess for committee formation talks, and then proceed to appoint members to standing committees, the assembly management committee, the budget and accounts committee, and the ethics special committee.
The volume of ordinances to be handled at the inaugural session is also substantial.
An agenda consultative body reviewed the local regulations to be submitted immediately upon launch and trimmed the number of assembly-related ordinance and rule proposals from 55 to 34.
The executive branch is set to submit 233 special city ordinance bills and 63 education office ordinance bills.
To process the bills efficiently, officials are considering either putting all bills to a single omnibus vote or grouping them by policy area for batch deliberation and passage, depending on whether each bill is contested.
At Tuesday's orientation, members-elect of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated City Assembly are set to receive a report from the agenda consultative body on proposals covering standing committee composition, negotiating-group operating standards and a plan to consolidate local regulations, and will decide whether to adopt them.
sij@heraldcorp.com
