Focus Interview: Party Building Leading and Empowering Community Governance Kangcheng Community Party Committee | Residents | Community
CCTV News: If the grassroots are strong, the country will be strong, and if the grassroots are safe, the world will be safe. With the increasing expansion of urban scale and diversification of urban structure, the difficulty of urban governance is also increasing, especially in mega cities where grassroots governance is facing complex situations.How can mega cities lead the modernization of grassroots governance through party building? The reporter recently conducted research on typical communities in two mega cities to see how they operate.
Su Rushan is the secretary of Longling Community in Shenzhen. On this day, she is going to a property management company in the community to communicate with residents about their needs. Recently, the community party committee collected a list of urgent needs from residents and found that aging electrical circuits is a major concern for residents as they enter the summer season. Su Rushan wants to see if she can persuade the property management company to help solve the overall problem with some government funding, in order to prevent future problems.
The property management company has concerns that if not rectified, if one household leaks electricity, it will cause a power outage for the entire building. Susan was not in a hurry. The party organization of this property management company is one of the co construction units of the community party committee. The so-called co construction refers to taking party building as the guide, forming close cooperation and resource sharing between the two sides, and no longer being a fragmented approach in the past. Everyone's goal is to provide a better life for community residents.
Liu Xiuming, Manager of Ruining Property Management Office, said, "We must rely on the guidance of the community party committee to solve problems that cannot be solved by the property through joint efforts. We must 'work together'."
Through joint construction, we can find the biggest cooperation point between each other, achieve mutual benefit, and solve the urgent needs and worries of residents. This is a new governance approach explored by the Party Committee of Longling Community and the Party organizations of the joint construction units in the jurisdiction. This exploration originated a few years ago when the community solved the most worrying problem of insufficient public space for residents. As an old street area in Shenzhen, the biggest feature of Longling Community is that it has more people and less land. Approximately 15000 people live within a 0.33 square kilometer area, with narrow and cramped alleys and no public activity space.
In order to expand public space, the community party committee has come up with many methods. There is a school in the jurisdiction. If they are willing to open the school gate and share the library, playground and other facilities with community residents, it can greatly alleviate the problem of community space tension. But can the school agree?
Huang Lei, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Longling Community in Shenzhen, said, "After we proposed opening up to the school at that time, the school still had some concerns."
Wang Geng, Secretary of the Party Branch of Longling Education Group, said, "We calculated at that time that it would be close to 1 million yuan per year, including water and electricity, air conditioning, and personnel, which would increase their workload and also bring some responsibilities, including bringing safety issues for teachers and students and campus safety."
However, the community party committee has also solved many difficulties for the school. If we can solve difficult problems for community residents, it is a mutually beneficial thing.
Wang Geng said, "We had a special discussion at that time. If it could truly improve the leisure life of the residents in the surrounding area, everyone believed that the burden was worth it. When there was a shortage of manpower, organizing party members to serve as volunteers in stages."
The community party committee and the school party branch sat together and immediately finalized the joint construction cooperation, and formulated a detailed daily management mechanism, such as clarifying the opening hours, identity registration, and so on. Nowadays, the opening of Longling School to community residents has become a norm, and community residents strictly abide by the school's opening regulations. The facilities in the school are not only well protected, but also have received many donated books and hardware facilities from society.
With such a good start, the "co construction, co governance, and sharing" model quickly spread within the community, and the community party committee actively sought cooperation units. 16 public hospitals, commercial nursing homes, and other units within the jurisdiction have established joint construction projects with community party committees. The service covers various aspects such as medical and health care, cultural education, elderly care services, sports and health, and solves the urgent and difficult problems faced by many residents.
Tang Xiangqun, Deputy Secretary of the Longgang District Committee of Shenzhen City, said, "Through the 'golden key' of party building, various entities and resources are connected to achieve joint construction, governance, and sharing. Targeting major issues of people's livelihood and small things around us that the people are concerned about, we put in a lot of 'embroidery work' in the details."
It is precisely because of the "co construction" model that the party branch of the property company and the community party committee have discussed and found a compromise solution to address their concerns. The property company has agreed to participate in the entire circuit maintenance. With the concept of "co construction, co governance, and sharing" deeply rooted in people's hearts, not only various units in the jurisdiction, but also more and more enthusiastic community residents are joining in, consolidating into a joint force of grassroots governance. On the day before the Dragon Boat Festival, the neighborhood yard of Longling Community was very busy. Residents made Zongzi together and gave it to the community service staff and the elderly.
For mega cities with multiple stakeholders, different interests and resource endowments, Shenzhen has explored a practical and feasible path to find the maximum common divisor, mobilize resources, and solve the urgent needs and anxieties of the people. Shanghai also has its own exploration on how to involve community residents in community affairs and achieve "co construction, co governance, and sharing".
On this day, the discussion in the Shanghai Kangcheng Community Committee was exceptionally lively. According to the needs of residents, the community party committee plans to hold a tug of war competition for residents in July to bring community residents closer and unite their hearts. The scale of the competition is unprecedented, and it is expected to gather over a thousand people to participate. This is a significant challenge for Zhang Junping, the full-time deputy secretary of the community party committee.
Zhang Junping said, "The difficulty lies in its size, because it has over 12000 households and a community of nearly 40000 people."
Kangcheng Community is the largest open community in Shanghai, with nearly 40000 residents. It is not an easy task to have these unfamiliar residents leave their homes and form teams to participate in competitions. At this discussion meeting, the community party committee invited some special foreign aid, who were the first batch of "community partners" who had just been recruited.
How to mobilize the sense of ownership among residents has always been a difficult problem in grassroots governance of large communities. This year, the Kangcheng Community Party Committee launched an innovative initiative called the "Community Partner" system. They attempted to use this new identity to encourage residents to participate. Although it was a voluntary job with no compensation, the Kangcheng Community Party Committee still listed some recruitment thresholds.
Zhang Junping: "I have a certain professional background, especially in engineering management, including fund management and community planning."
The recruitment threshold is not low, and there is also an interview and assessment. Whether the residents will cheer or not is uncertain for Zhang Junping. Unexpectedly, as soon as the recruitment notice was released at the beginning of the year, it attracted many people to sign up, including corporate executives, lawyers, accountants, as well as experts in different fields such as landscaping engineers, builders, and early childhood education.
Liu Shaofei is an old resident of Kangcheng Community, serving as the head of the supply department in a foreign enterprise. With over 20 years of party experience, he is a warm-hearted person. He, who used to be a community volunteer, immediately submitted his resume when he heard about the recruitment of "community partners".
Through the interview assessment, Liu Shaofei and 87 other residents became the first batch of hired "community partners". Among them, there are 25 partners under the age of 40, and nearly 80% of partners under the age of 50. This recruitment achievement delighted Zhang Junping immensely. It not only reflects the sense of ownership among residents, but also signifies their recognition and trust in the community party committee. It was impossible for residents to actively participate in community affairs like this five or six years ago.
As the largest open community in Shanghai, Kangcheng Community has undergone a transformation from chaos to governance. There have been frequent theft cases here, and issues such as illegal construction and group rental are also very prominent. In addition, with dispersed neighborhood committees and paralyzed property committees, the community was once in a difficult situation to govern, and residents moved out one after another. Faced with such difficulties, community party organizations led party members and cadres to take the initiative, charge ahead, and lift the beam of community construction. From building a safe home, to improving the environment of the community, from introducing subway shuttle buses, to renovating dirty and disorderly vegetable markets, and building community canteens, every urgent and difficult task that residents are looking forward to has been completed, making the community look brand new.
The approach of the community party committee should be seen and remembered by residents. Trust has accumulated bit by bit, and community party organizations and residents have formed a positive interaction, with more and more residents willing to contribute their efforts. "Community partners" have emerged, responding in unison.
The upcoming tug of war competition for thousands of people is just a small trial for the "partners". At the same time, they have also established a dedicated project team to solve the charging problem of community electric vehicles and discuss solutions together. In the future, "community partners" will also leverage their respective strengths, explore new paths for modernizing community governance around key areas such as community development, community governance, and community services, link social resources through multiple channels, and empower Kangcheng to enhance its governance capabilities. The Kangcheng Party Committee will also expand the recruitment of "partners" in batches, allowing more people to participate.
Liu Chang'an, Director of the Organization Department of the Organization Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, said, "The biggest difficulty in governance of super large communities is that a small number of staff have to manage the affairs of tens of thousands of people well, while also winning the understanding and support of tens of thousands of people. The biggest experience of Kangcheng Community is to fully leverage the organizational advantages of the party organization, mobilize the masses, handle their own affairs, turn the governance objects into governance forces, and stimulate the spirit of ownership of residents in accordance with the requirements of General Secretary People's Urban Construction."
Although the community is small, it connects thousands of households. In the new era, the people are full of new expectations for a better life, and community governance is also facing new situations and tasks. It is necessary for grassroots party organizations to actively respond to the expectations of the people, improve the efficiency of community governance, systematically deploy and accurately exert efforts, and ensure that residents have needs and grassroots services. In addition to what was mentioned in the program, many parts of the country are exploring new methods and models of grassroots governance led by party building, driving the people to jointly build and govern, and striving to create a cohesive social governance situation.
