Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday introduced a group of people who will choose the head of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection if he is elected, as he welcomed recommendations and applications for the job.
Top city officials are usually handpicked by the mayor, but to put his idea of “open government” into practice, Ko announced earlier that he would ask a panel composed of environmental experts and activists to choose the most suitable person to lead the department.
The panel includes Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) founder Shih Hsin-min (施信民), TEPU vice chairman Liu Chih-chien (劉志堅), former New Taipei City Environmental Protection Bureau director Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基), attorney Thomas Chan (詹順貴), National Taiwan University professor Wu Kun-yu (吳焜裕), Homemakers’ Union founding chairwoman Chen Hsiu-hui (陳秀惠), board member Chen Man-li (陳曼麗), as well as a former Taipei environmental department director and vice director who wished to remain anonymous because they both are affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“The panel that will choose the environmental department head is only the first; other panels are on the way,” Ko told a news conference at his campaign headquarters. “Setting up these panels and publicly calling for recommendations and applications for the jobs are to prevent accusations of the mayor selecting officials from his circle of friends.”
After the panel has chosen the candidates, Ko said he would ask 400,000 Taipei residents to vote online to select the best officials. He did not elaborate on how he decided on how the vote would proceed.
Ko said that since most public servants only act according to their supervisors’ instructions, he would only hold top officials responsible for administrative errors, instead of asking lower-ranking civil employees to shoulder the responsibility.
“There will be no more Yu Wen (余文) when I am elected mayor,” Ko added, referring to a secretary when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was the mayor of Taipei.
Yu was imprisoned when Ma was accused of embezzling public funds, as Ma said he had authorized Yu to handle all money affairs.
Commenting on Ko’s idea on appointing city officials, the Democratic Progressive Party said in a statement yesterday that it fully respects Ko and would not intervene in his choice of officials.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
RSS