Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday said he would “humbly accept” criticism and opposing views voiced by Taipei city councilors following his suggestion that the Taipei First Municipal Funeral Parlor be moved to Nangang District (南港).
Lien last week proposed moving the funeral parlor to the Shanzhuku Landfill Site (山豬窟垃圾掩埋場) in Nangang and building a public housing complex at the parlor’s current site.
His idea met with criticism from Taipei city councilors across party lines.
KMT councilors said the landfill site, which was transformed into an ecological park that opened last year, has only one access road, stressing that transportation would be a major problem if the mortuary was relocated there.
Some councilors said they disapproved that the plan was presented without Lien communicating with residents in the area.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors held a news conference at the park on Saturday, slamming Lien for treating people living in Nangang and Neihu (內湖) districts as second-class citizens.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Chien-chang (李建昌) said the landfill suspended operations in 2002 and the city has since invested at least NT$400 million to establish a 21 hectare ecological park.
The park has been lauded as Nangang’s Daan Forest Park and become residents’ backyard garden, Lee said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Wang Hsiao-wei (王孝維) said there were some residents upset by Lien’s campaign director, KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), who supports the relocation idea, as Tsai’s constituency is in Nangang and Neihu.
Later on Saturday, Lien sparked controversy while responding to the comments.
“The DPP councilors have had a rough day, after all it is not easy to protest and make a performance in a place with such a strong odor,” Lien said.
People said that Lien has little understanding of the landfill-turned-park.
Lien yesterday said that the “odor” he was referring to was “marsh gas” that he has been told by residents can be smelled at night in the area.
Lien said he would consider the councilors’ views, but added that as the proposed location for the funeral parlor is far from downtown areas, the impact would be limited.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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