Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that the Taipei Dome project was already “messed up” when he took office.
Ko made the comment in response to Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) remark on Monday that he has not properly handled the project, causing losses to all stakeholders.
Han said in a speech at Stanford University in California that Ko’s mishandling resulted in a no-win situation for city residents, the Taipei City Government and the contractor, adding that he would not let a similar incident occur in Kaohsiung.
“Han was right in saying that the Taipei Dome project should not be like this,” Ko said, adding that the project had already become very difficult to deal with by the time he took over.
He likened the project to a medical emergency, saying that when he was a surgeon, he knew that not everyone involved in a traffic accident could be saved, and some of them might end up losing a limb or an eye, but all he could do was to try his best and let the patient have a better life.
“Frankly speaking, this is all that can be done, because ... when I think about the main stadium being designed to rest 10.5m below ground level, I still think that the design is too strange,” he said, adding that he can only do his best to solve the problems at hand and not complain.
Asked whether he would feel threatened if Hon Hai Precision Industry chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) ran for president, Ko laughed and asked: “What does it have to do with me?”
He said that he would take a deep breath, stay calm and keep doing what he should do.
He said he is considering what would be better for the Taiwanese society, because “if being president takes the nation to a worse situation, then what is the point of being president?”
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