It has been exactly one month since the ninth round of directly elected local governments took office.
With the four-year terms of district mayors now fully under way, the weight of responsibility they carry toward local administration is unlike anything they have faced before.
Of the Seoul district mayors elected in this year's local elections, 13 are serving their first term. Each brings wide experience from various fields, but the role of district mayor operates on an entirely different level.
They must oversee a vast range of administrative tasks handled by roughly 1,500 to 2,000 civil servants, while staying prepared for disasters and safety incidents that can strike without warning. With residents' demands on local government growing ever more diverse, 24 hours in a day is barely enough.
For a district mayor — the top official responsible for an entire community — each day can feel like walking on thin ice.
A startling accident unfolded Thursday afternoon on Dongillo, the main road running through Seoul's Nowon-gu.
A plane tree nearly 40 years old, standing on the sidewalk, suddenly toppled over. The massive tree fell across the pavement and onto the road, blocking lanes of traffic.
The crash sent nearby pedestrians scrambling in fright. A Starex van traveling along the road narrowly escaped disaster — had it been just half a second faster, the falling tree would have landed directly on the driver's seat.
The driver, who slammed on the brakes as the tree came down just ahead of the vehicle, was left shaken by the near miss.
Kang Do-su, building manager of the nearby Goryeo Plaza, described the scene. "The sudden crash was so loud that many people inside the shops rushed outside," he said.
Nowon-gu District Mayor Seo Jun-o, 51, dropped everything on his schedule and headed straight to the scene upon hearing the news.
On a day with no heavy rain or strong winds, a living 40-year-old street tree had simply fallen — for Seo, it was nothing short of a disaster scene. Relieved that no one had been injured, he immediately set about determining the cause of the accident and managing the situation on the ground.
After surveying the scene, Seo visited more than 20 nearby stores one by one, explaining to shop owners the cause of the accident, the steps being taken to address it, and plans for follow-up measures. He also announced plans for a comprehensive inspection of the health and growth conditions of surrounding trees, reassuring anxious residents and merchants.
While the accident itself was difficult to predict, Seo's swift and attentive response in its aftermath stood out.
Leadership matters in any organization. The tone of an institution is shaped by how its leader thinks and acts, and the direction a district mayor sets — in philosophy and policy — determines what a community looks like.
Seo is no stranger to local government, having served as a policy aide to former National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik and as chief of staff to Kim Sung-hwan, the Nowon-gu district mayor during the fifth term of directly elected local government. But there is a fundamental difference between supporting a leader and being the one who must make the final call and bear full responsibility.
The fallen tree incident will likely have served as a reminder — one month into his first term — of what public administration is truly about.
Seo has long championed the idea that answers to every problem lie in the field itself. His handling of Thursday's incident suggests he came away with a renewed sense of what it means to be a district mayor: to protect the lives and safety of residents, and to take full responsibility for every problem in the community.
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
