Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday she remained optimistic that the Executive Yuan would approve the planned merger between Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County.
Asked for comment after a weekly meeting of the city government, Chen said the city’s competitiveness for the next 50 to 100 years would be seriously affected if the city and county were not merged into a special municipality while Taipei City and Taipei County were.
Chen conceded that the merger had met with strong opposition from a number of Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County councilors who were concerned that the number of councilor seats would be reduced.
However, the merger between the city and county is part of an “unavoidable trend,” Chen said, adding that she hoped to see more positive discussion of the matter.
Kaohsiung City Government had submitted a report on the merger to the Kaohsiung City Council after the Legislative Yuan on April 3 approved an amendment to the Local Government Act (地方制度法) to allow cities and counties to integrate into special municipalities.
The city government hopes to complete the merger by next year, simultaneously with the planned merger of Taichung City and Taichung County.
Meanwhile, 56 civic groups, including environmental protection groups, in Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County launched a campaign calling on the city and county councils to approve the merger by the end of next month.
“The central government has made it clear that it would deal with merger plans submitted by local governments by the end of next month,” said Lu Yu-yi (盧友義), an architect who organized the campaign.
Lu said many civic groups in Kaohsiung had been arguing for the merger for two decades and considered this campaign their “last battle.”
Tseng Tse-fong (曾梓峰), a professor at the Graduate Institute of Urban Development and Architecture of the National University of Kaohsiung, said city and county councilors should not put their political interests before the best interests of Kaohsiung residents when considering the merger.
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