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Civic groups have organized a petition in support of waving reimbursement charges against Yoon Jong-o, former mayor of Ulsan’s North District, for refusing construction permits to Costco out of concern for local merchants. (provided by the Beta Solidarity to Settle the Costco Reimbursement Costs)
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Former mayor of Ulsan’s North District facing massive reimbursement costs
While serving as mayor of Ulsan’s Buk (North) District Office in 2011, Yoon Jong-o rejected three separate applications to build a local branch of the warehouse retailer Costco. Yoon’s repeated refusals to permit the construction were based on his belief that it should not be allowed “until we have a system and alternatives in place to protect small merchants and local commercial districts.” As a result, Yoon ended up facing civil and criminal lawsuits filed by the Jinjang Distribution Complex Association, which owns a building that it’d planned on leasing to the Costco branch in Ulsan. The city’s administrative judgment committee pressured him to grant the building permit with its arbitration findings and enforcement order; when he held out, the committee invoked its own authority to grant the permit. The Costco branch was finally built and opened its doors in late Aug. 2012. In July 2015, a ruling was upheld ordering Yoon and the district to pay 367 million won (US$325,000) in damages. The district ended up paying a total of 560 million won (US$497,000) to the Jinjang Distribution Complex Association, including the damages as well as interest and legal costs. It also filed suit against Yoon in Aug. 2016 to demand reimbursement. The Supreme Court issued a final ruling last June ordering Yoon to pay over 400 million won (US$355,000) in reimbursement costs. Yoon is currently awaiting auction procedures in his apartment due to the reimbursement liability. With his bank transactions also suspended, he now finds himself unable to engage in even basic financial activity. In response, over 30 local resident, worker, and small merchant associations banded together to form the groups “Beta Solidarity to Settle the Costco Reimbursement Costs” and “Buk District Countermeasures Committee to Waive the Costco Reimbursement Charges.” On Nov. 19, a resident petition and list of 11,257 signatures was presented to the Ulsan Buk District Council to demand the Yoon’s liability for the reimbursement charges be waived. “Mr. Yoon’s current situation is something that people in South Korea are forced into when they speak out for the socially vulnerable,” the groups said in a press conference beforehand at the plaza in front of the district office. Calling for a registration system rather than a permit system for large retailers along the lines of those adopted in Western Europe and Japan when they opened up their service industries in the early 1990s, the groups insisted that the central government and National Assembly “take responsibility for leaving small merchants and neighborhood commercial districts in their defenseless state.” “This residents’ petition will be an opportunity for provincial councils to relieve the harshness of South Korea’s distribution laws and institutions,” they added. In an opinion on the petition, the Ulsan chapter of the group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society said, “In view of various regulations in the Local Autonomy Act and Local Government Finance Act, the local government is empowered to waive Mr. Yoon’s reimbursement liability if the local council voted to adopt the resident petition.” “Indeed, there is a precedent of the city of Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, waiving the legal cost liabilities of residents affected by flooding of the Samseong River in 2008 based on a vote by the city council’s plenary session,” it noted. By Sin Dong-myeong, Ulsan correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
