<figure id="attachment_460765" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-460765" style="width: 960px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="cbbb430d"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/c0544eedc3cf57943e4866f6879f4d5f.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-460765" class="wp-caption-text">Mayor Ogawa was reelected in January. Two months have passed since he took office, but citizens are voicing &#8220;certain doubts.</figcaption></figure>
<h3> Suspicions&#8221; have surfaced concerning public works projects in the city.</h3>
 Mayor Akira Ogawa (43) of Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture, won a re-election in January of this year. A &#8220;new firestorm&#8221; is already brewing one after another in her vicinity.
 In September of last year, Mayor Ogawa was found to have been &#8220;secretly meeting&#8221; with a subordinate city employee at a love hotel. This became a major social issue, and she was forced to resign as mayor. Although he was reelected in January of this year, there is a strong sense among citizens that he is morally responsible.
 Amid such circumstances, a symbolic large-scale facility in the city that regrettably closed in 2011 has become the focus of attention. That facility is Maebashi Terrsa. The brick-colored exterior of this multi-purpose facility, equipped with accommodations and a large hall, has long been a landmark of Maebashi, loved by its citizens.
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 A public review was held to determine the company to which &#8220;Maebashi Telsa&#8221; will be sold. The selected company will receive a subsidy of up to 1.3 billion yen from the city. Four companies applied for the public call in the form of business proposals. However, only Company A, a wedding and funeral service company headquartered in the city, was selected in the final screening. Suspicion arose because the president of Company A enthusiastically supported candidate Ogawa in the mayoral election in January of this year. Furthermore, the screening process was closed to the public, leading some to ask why the three companies were rejected, and others to ask whether this one company had been selected from the beginning of the open application process.
 In fact, the local shopping district and the city&#8217;s chamber of commerce submitted a written request to the mayor and city council chairman requesting that they reconsider the screening process, and in late February, the local shopping district hosted a citizens&#8217; rally to &#8220;reconsider the screening process so that multiple proposals can be compared from the perspective of transparency and fairness,&#8221; which was attended by over 100 citizens. The situation has spread to the point that more than 100 citizens have attended the rally. A city government official familiar with the situation said, &#8220;The president of Company A told everyone around him that the final decision was made.
 The president of Company A is proudly telling everyone around him that he was selected as one of the finalists. Moreover, of the two companies that made it to the final round, the one that supported the business plan of the rejected company was the president of the company that supported Mayor Ogawa&#8217;s opponent in the last mayoral election. Some are even asking, &#8216;Are they giving him preferential treatment because he is a supporter?
 A city council member continued.
 When Mayor Ogawa was asked about this issue at his regular press conference on February 20, he replied that the screening process was &#8216;closed to the public and properly screened. When asked, &#8220;Wasn&#8217;t one company selected at the public solicitation stage?&#8221; he replied, &#8220;There was no flaw in the procedure and there is no problem.&#8221; As for &#8220;why the three companies did not proceed to the final screening,&#8221; he was adamant, &#8220;I don&#8217;t have to answer that question. Although the mayor had publicly stated that the results of the review would be made public, the results of the final review on March 5 were not made public until one week later, on March 11. The mayor publicly stated that he would announce the results of the review, but only announced the results of the final review on March 5 on March 11, a week later.
 It is said that the final review took as long as three and a half hours, indicating that Mayor Ogawa was quite nervous. In the end, the remaining business plan of Company A was not selected, and &#8220;Maebashi Terrsa&#8221; was set to be dismantled. However, a source close to the city government stated, &#8220;Citizens&#8217; suspicions have not been allayed.
 According to information that has circulated, &#8220;Company A&#8217;s proposal included a request for the city to bear certain burdens, such as the exemption of fixed assets,&#8221; and this point was raised as an issue at the citizens&#8217; meeting. Why was Company A, whose plan placed a burden on the city, selected as a finalist? &#8230;&#8230; If this company had been selected, I think the situation would have been called &#8216;collusion between the mayor and the supporting company.
 Since the final review on the 5th, the city is said to have issued a gag order, which is strange in itself! It is not right in itself. The local shopping district and the city&#8217;s Chamber of Commerce even submitted a request for &#8220;reconsideration,&#8221; so it was only natural for the city to make an announcement on the same day.
 The city plans to bid for a construction company to demolish the building, but the demand for the continued existence of Maebashi Terrsa, which has been loved by the citizens for many years, is strong, and the demand for clarification of the review process has not changed even after the review results were released. This is not a story that will end with &#8220;no one adopted. Not only will the mayor be held accountable for the fact that the situation has developed to the point where citizens have become so involved, but the question of whether or not to dismantle the building will also be asked in the future. The &#8220;alleged partner&#8221; is the mayor&#8217;s opponent.
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The &quot;suspect&quot; had been rehired by a company owned by the mayor&#39;s party!"></div>
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<figure id="attachment_460761" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-460761" style="width: 1667px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9ed13a58"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/7309c852d7a1435340f64ee64e5afc00.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-460761" class="wp-caption-text">At the Maebashi Festival in 2012, they performed a dance that had the audience cheering. He was cheered by the citizens. A year and a half has passed since then, but it seems that he has yet to fully regain the trust he lost due to the &#8220;love hotel secret meeting report.</figcaption></figure>
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<h3> His title is the head of the &#8220;Crisis Management Office.</h3>
 FRIDAY Digital obtained a &#8220;business card&#8221; in the course of its coverage of the public review issue.
 &#8220;Head of the Office of the President and Head of the Crisis Management Office.
 The person whose picture appears with the title is Mr. X, a former subordinate of Mayor Ogawa&#8217;s &#8220;secret love-hotel meeting&#8221; partner. The person whose photo appears along with his title is Mr. X, a former subordinate of Mayor Ogawa&#8217;s. Mr. X resigned at his own request last year after the &#8220;secret love-hotel meeting&#8221; was uncovered, but has unexpectedly been reemployed by a company that &#8220;belongs to Mayor Ogawa&#8217;s faction.
 The president of the company is a person who enthusiastically supported candidate Ogawa in the mayoral election. We do not know whether Mayor Ogawa was involved in this employment, but we have heard that the president is making the rounds with Mr. X to greet the people around him. Still, why the title &#8220;head of the Crisis Management Office&#8221;? This is the same person who tarnished Maebashi&#8217;s image nationwide with his &#8220;Secret Meeting at a Love Hotel&#8221;&#8230;.
 What is even more astonishing is that the president of this company proudly reveals on his Facebook page that his company is one of the four companies in the current open competition. The fact that he brought Mr. X along with him to greet the applicants is nothing more than an attempt to show off his proximity to the mayor. There is nothing legally wrong with such an action, but there must be public work involved in demolition. I am concerned that the mayor may be &#8220;patronizing&#8221; his supporters, as in the case of the public review issue.
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 Did Mr. X really reapply for a job at Company B, which is said to be a member of the &#8220;Ogawa faction&#8221;? Was Mayor Ogawa involved in this? When a reporter rang Mr. X&#8217;s cell phone, he answered.
 I believe that you are the head of the president&#8217;s office and the head of the crisis management office at Company B. Am I correct?
 Yes.&#8221;
 &#8211;The president of Company B has been showing himself to be an ardent supporter of Mayor Ogawa on social networking sites. Were you aware of this?
 I don&#8217;t know much about it.
 &#8211;Did the president directly ask you to come to the meeting?
 Well, &#8230;&#8230;, that&#8217;s part of it.
 Have you been introduced to your current position by the mayor or through an intermediary?
 Oh, no. Yes.
 There are still many voices in society that question the moral responsibility of the mayor.
 I am sorry, I am not in a position to comment on that. I am sorry.&#8221;
 After saying this, Mr. X hung up his cell phone.
 It has been two months since Mayor Akira Ogawa&#8217;s administration restarted in January. The announcement of the screening results is fanning the flames of a &#8220;firestorm. Mayor Ogawa has already reached a critical point.
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 Sota Shima

 Mayor Akira Ogawa won the Maebashi mayoral election in January and was reappointed. Two months have passed since he took office, and citizens are now spreading "suspicions" about him. What is the reality of the "problem" that even led to a citizens' rally? ......

The “secret partner” of Mayor Akira Ogawa, who met secretly at a love hotel, has been re-hired by a “mayoralist company!

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