Surveillance cameras are to be used to crack down on illegal parking “hot spots” in the city, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
“There are some locations for which the city government has received up to 10,000 reports of illegal parking every month, forcing the police department to send officers to patrol the site 24/7,” Ko said. “Rather than having police officers act as scarecrows, it makes more sense to just directly install surveillance cameras for ticketing purposes.”
He added that the new rules would apply only to the city’s top 10 illegal parking hotspots, leaving most of the city’s surveillance cameras — of which there are more than 14,000 — unaffected.
Ko said that he had conducted an investigation and found that there is no law forbidding the use of cameras in issuing parking tickets, adding that laws are passed for the sake of administrative efficiency rather than to gum up the work of government.
On Friday, he used stronger language, referring to city councilors who opposed the change as “shit-brained.”
Ko has made reducing police officers’ superfluous duties a priority, last month cutting in half the list of tasks for which police officers are obligated to assist other government departments, eliminating duties such as ferrying around students taking standardized tests who forget their “test card” or go to the wrong test-taking center.
Taipei City Councilor Lin Shih-tsung (林世宗) of the Democratic Progressive Party condemned Ko’s announcement.
He said that even if using surveillance cameras for illegal parking ticketing is not technically illegal, it goes against the original reason for their implementation, which was to guarantee public safety. He said the city government should address the issue by increasing the supply of legal parking spaces, rather than simply handing out more tickets.
A source within the city government said Ko’s decision was controversial internally, because of concerns that using the cameras for ticketing would lead to disputes over whether people were present in illegally parked cars.
Under city law, any parking along a red line is illegal, but fines are substantially lighter if a person is inside the vehicle. Unlike police officers, surveillance cameras cannot easily verify whether a person is in a vehicle, the source said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS