When a third-floor resident told Lee Chen-yang (李振陽) of Taipei's Shihlin District to keep off the roof-top of the three-story apartment building he had lived in for 25 years, Lee sent an e-mail to the Mayor's Mail Box.
Three days later, he got a call from the Shihlin District Office, telling him that the office would send someone to investigate the matter. The following day, he received a letter from the Shihlin District administrator telling him that all residents of the building were entitled to use the public area of the roof-top.
"I was very impressed with their quick and efficient response," said Lee, 35.
The Mayor's Mail Box is an e-mail service for use by members of the public who wish to contact the city government. It was established when President Chen Shui-bian (
But the e-mail service hasn't pleased everyone. Wang Nien-chun (王念群) said that he was not too happy about the bureaucratic response he got after writing to the Mayor's Mail Box on March 12. He had written to complain about the inconvenience of having to pay parking fees at the post office instead of at convenience stores.
Although he received an e-mail from the Parking Management Administration (停管處) five days after he had filed the complaint, he said he was not at all impressed with the "utterly stereotypical red tape."
"I want answers, not a literary composition," he said.
According to the latest quarterly survey administered by the city's Commission of Research, Development and Evaluation (研考會), the Mayor's Mail Box received roughly 10,000 e-mails between October and December of last year, or about 3,300 per month.
In a survey of 1,554 people who used the service during that period, over 34 percent of the respondents said they were "very unimpressed," while only 18 percent were "very impressed."
Reasons for dissatisfaction include, topping the list at 28 percent, that the reply was not what had been expected. Ranking second, with more than 18 percent, was the objection that the matter had ultimately been handled in a way that was different from what had been promised in the response. The bureaucratic tone of the response was the third most common cause of dissatisfaction, with over 15 percent.
The Bureau of Public Works (工務局) received the most complaints, with 146 complaints, followed by the Bureau of Environmental Protection (環保局) and the Bureau of Transportation (交通局) with 83 and 58 complaints respectively.
Lin Chi-liang (林季良), secretary-general of the Commission of Research, Development and Evaluation, said that it was logical that most e-mail users would not be very impressed with the electronic complaint channel.
"Netizens are very different from those who file complaints via other means such as ordinary mail or telephone. They're so used to the fast speed of the Internet that they simply cannot stand the comparatively slow pace of the government, which has to do things according to standard procedures," he said.
It is rather hard to make immediate improvements to the service, Lin added. "The only thing the commission is authorized to do is to make recommendations to, rather than discipline, the bureaus or departments concerned when they fail to do a good job," he said.
Lin said those who are frustrated with the Mayor's Mail Box service are encouraged to call the toll-free numbers to file complaints.
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