No new contract revision talks will be held with Farglory Land Development Co unless Farglory chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) participates, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
“If there are further negotiations, Chao Teng-hsiung needs to be present, otherwise there will not be any talks,” Ko said.
“Nothing could be accomplished” without Chao’s participation, he added. “There’s no point in holding negotiations in which you come with power of attorney, but are not able to decide anything.”
Talks with the developer broke down on Friday night over a “consensus” reached with the previous municipal administration.
Farglory refused to agree to the capital’s demands that it accept that the “22 plus 2” contract article reversals or revisions serve as the starting point for the next round of talks on the Taipei Dome project. In response, the municipal government said the talks had collapsed, putting in doubt the “initial consensus” reached by Ko and Chao on Wednesday night.
“I told Chao that times have changed, but I do not think he understood,” Ko said. “While we are willing to help as much as possible, we cannot keep doing things the way they have been done.”
He said the municipality would no longer tolerate “stalling tactics” by the firm, which he described as the firm had been “two-faced” — agreeing in principle to revisions while dragging out talks over contractual articles flagged as questionable by the Control Yuan.
Meanwhile, Farglory Public Relations Department deputy manager Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) said that the firm would hold internal discussions on whether it is necessary for Chao to take part in future negotiations.
He added that Chao’s presence would not have changed the outcome of Friday’s negotiations, because he would have made the same decisions as company representative facing the capital’s “disrespectful behavior.”
Ko said Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) would deal with Chao in future negotiations.
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