Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday accepted the group resignation of top-level officials as is the convention prior to an official handover ceremony and promised to make urban renewal, transportation development and river dredging work top priorities during his second term.
The city government’s 25 department heads, led by Taipei Deputy Mayor Lin Chien-yuan (林建元), tendered their resignations in accordance with the Local Governance Act (地方制度法), which requires appointed local government officials to resign by Dec. 24. The new municipal team will assume office the following day.
Lin and several other officials, including Department of Transportation Commissioner Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢), Department of Environmental Protection Director Ni Shih-piao (倪世標) and Department of Social Welfare Affairs Commissioner Shih Yu-ling (師豫玲), are not expected to keep their positions.
“The election of Mayor Hau is a public endorsement of this dedicated team. We are the most capable municipal team in the country and I encourage those who are staying on to share their experiences with other cities and make Taipei a better place to live,” Lin said.
Accepting the resignations, the mayor defended the team’s crisis management abilities on major municipal projects, including the Maokong Gondola, the MRT’s Wenshan-Neihu Line and the Taipei International Flora Expo.
“We’ve faced crises in the past, but thanks to your dedication and hard work, we solved the problems and won the recognition of the public. Municipal development is continuous work and we will make even greater achievements in the next four years,” Hau said.
He declined to discuss the upcoming reshuffle of his team, but promised to reveal the list of new officials when it has been finalized.
Hau said urban renewal projects would be a top priority of his new team during the next four years. Besides improving the city’s landscape, the mayor also promised to work with Sinbei City mayor-elect Eric Chu (朱立倫) on the dredging of the Tamsui River and on MRT construction.
“There’ll be a lot of cooperation between Taipei City and Sinbei City. Mayor Chu and I will carry out our campaign promises and join forces to turn the two cities into one great living metropolis,” he said.
The mayor shrugged off concerns about the impact of the creation of four new special municipalities on Taipei’s finances, saying the central government has promised to increase the city’s annual budget.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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