Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and his administration yesterday received mediocre grades for their performance over the past two years in a survey that polled reporters who cover Taipei City Hall.
Hau was given an average grade of 49 out of a possible 100 for his integrity, communication skills, understanding of public opinion, political judgment and crisis management, the survey conducted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilors showed.
The survey polled 44 city desk reporters between last Thursday and Monday on the performance of Hau and 36 department heads.
PHOTO: CNA
The Hau administration was given 55 points for its overall performance. Commissioner of the Social Affairs Department Shih Yu-ling (師豫玲), head of Taipei City’s Research Development and Evaluation Commission Emile Sheng (盛治仁) and Tom Chang (常歧德), commissioner of the Rapid Transit Systems, were rated as the top three performers in the Hau administration, the survey showed.
Taipei City Government Spokesman Yang Hsiao-tung (羊曉東), Taipei Secretariat Director Yang Hsi-an (楊錫安) and Chu Yea-Hu (朱亞虎), commissioner of Compulsory Military Service, were the department heads who were rated the lowest, it said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Chen Yu-mei (陳玉梅) expressed her concern over the poor grades the administration received from the press and urged the mayor to step up efforts to push for more municipal development.
“Mayor Hau, you are running for re-election next year, and we are very concerned about you and your administration. Do you think such a municipal team can be an asset for you in the mayoral election?” she said yesterday during a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) called on Yang and other department heads who received poor grades to work on their communication with the press and improve their performance.
He also urged Hau to visit local boroughs more often and create more opportunities to communicate with local residents.
Hau acknowledged that he and the municipal team needed to improve their performance and promised to correct the flaws and mistakes that were pointed out in the survey.
The mayor defended the city government’s efforts in organizing large-scale events including the Deaflympics in September and next year’s Floral Expo and said he was confident that residents will come to acknowledge the city government’s performance.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS