Independent Taipei city councilors and their counterparts from small political parties yesterday said that they would back a downward adjustment to a proposed water price hike and delay plans to increase bus fares.
The announcement came ahead of a cross-party negotiation scheduled for tomorrow.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), accompanied by deputy mayors Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) and Charles Lin (林欽榮), visited five Taipei City councilors yesterday to solicit the support of what Ko said was the “key minority” that could help pass two special projects and budget requests for some of the city government’s most important projects.
The projects include the 2050 Vision — which is related to the city’s urban renewal projects and traffic policies — and the second reserve fund, as well as a proposed increase in water prices and bus fares.
The five Taipei City councilors who took part in yesterday’s discussions were independent councilors Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元) and Chen Cheng-chung (陳政忠), the People First Party’s Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) and Lin Kuo-cheng (林國成), and the Republican Party’s Hsi Shih-hsun (徐世勳).
The five councilors asked the city government to call a news conference to clarify the specifics of the 2050 Vision and explain why it needs the budget allocation, in a bid to convince the city council to pass the budget proposal, Lee said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Taipei City Council caucus said it is considering rejecting the budget request.
The city councilors would back a downward adjustment to a proposed water price hike for monthly use of 20 to 60 tonnes of water.
They would ask that water prices charged from these people be cut from NT$6.7 to NT$6.2 per tonne in tomorrow’s cross-party negotiation, to ease the financial burden on intermediate water users, such as small businesses, Lee said.
The Taipei Water Department said it planned to raise the prices from NT$5.7 to NT$7 per tonne.
Lee said he believes that the plan to raise bus fares should be put on hold given the economic slowdown.
Lee said Ko had agreed to freeze the budget for 529 public housing units near a school on Hexin Road in Wenshan District (文山), after residents on Monday opposed to the project out of concern over the construction degrading students’ quality of learning.
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