Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday remained reticent about the Taipei City Government’s policy on the Taipei Dome project as the deadline for site completion passed.
“We have four different plans, but there is no need to announce our strategy to the media,” Ko said, adding that the municipal government did not want to “show its cards” on the issue of dissolving Farglory Group’s (遠雄集團) contract and assuming control of the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project’s site.
He said that the city would announce its next step today or tomorrow.
Yesterday was the end of a contractual grace period for Farglory to finish the Dome after the contractor’s construction deadline expired.
In response to questions at the Taipei City Council, Deputy Taipei Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) said that the city could choose to provide Farglory additional time, suspend parts or all of the contract, dissolve the contract outright or ask lenders to assume control.
City government spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said it would be inappropriate to announce the city’s next steps because the firm’s contractual deadline did not technically expire until the end of yesterday.
Ko also dismissed Farglory’s threats to sue city officials for slander.
“This is fundamentally a question of public safety, but the firm keeps refusing to resolve the issue, always talking instead about side issues,” he said.
Ko accused the contractor of seeking to “sling mud” at Deputy Taipei Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) prior to a city-sponsored conference on Dome safety on Saturday.
He said that pictures of Lin participating in academic trips sponsored by Farglory that surfaced last week had “clearly” been provided by the embattled contractor.
Farglory on Sunday said it would sue Ko and other city officials for “public humiliation” and “slander” after Ko said that the Dome controversy was fundamentally about a “greedy firm” and “complicated relations” with previous city administrations.
The firm also cited earlier comments by Ko that Farglory chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) had “reeked of alcohol” when he came to city hall for talks.
Ko yesterday said that he was not the first person to call Farglory a “greedy corporation” and his comments could bear the weight of public scrutiny.
The municipal government and Farglory have wrangled over Dome contract terms since January, with a city safety commission in April finding that the Dome itself or a neighboring shopping mall should be demolished.
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