Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and his administration yesterday received mediocre grades for their performance over the past two years in a survey that polled reporters who cover Taipei City Hall.
Hau was given an average grade of 49 out of a possible 100 for his integrity, communication skills, understanding of public opinion, political judgment and crisis management, the survey conducted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilors showed.
The survey polled 44 city desk reporters between last Thursday and Monday on the performance of Hau and 36 department heads.
PHOTO: CNA
The Hau administration was given 55 points for its overall performance. Commissioner of the Social Affairs Department Shih Yu-ling (師豫玲), head of Taipei City’s Research Development and Evaluation Commission Emile Sheng (盛治仁) and Tom Chang (常歧德), commissioner of the Rapid Transit Systems, were rated as the top three performers in the Hau administration, the survey showed.
Taipei City Government Spokesman Yang Hsiao-tung (羊曉東), Taipei Secretariat Director Yang Hsi-an (楊錫安) and Chu Yea-Hu (朱亞虎), commissioner of Compulsory Military Service, were the department heads who were rated the lowest, it said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Chen Yu-mei (陳玉梅) expressed her concern over the poor grades the administration received from the press and urged the mayor to step up efforts to push for more municipal development.
“Mayor Hau, you are running for re-election next year, and we are very concerned about you and your administration. Do you think such a municipal team can be an asset for you in the mayoral election?” she said yesterday during a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) called on Yang and other department heads who received poor grades to work on their communication with the press and improve their performance.
He also urged Hau to visit local boroughs more often and create more opportunities to communicate with local residents.
Hau acknowledged that he and the municipal team needed to improve their performance and promised to correct the flaws and mistakes that were pointed out in the survey.
The mayor defended the city government’s efforts in organizing large-scale events including the Deaflympics in September and next year’s Floral Expo and said he was confident that residents will come to acknowledge the city government’s performance.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS