Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday was mum on reports that he would appoint former Greater Taichung deputy mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) to be his third deputy mayor, but hinted that candidates with backgrounds in education would be “very suitable” for the post.
While the third deputy mayor seat has remained vacant since Ko’s second term began on Dec. 25 last year, some local media on Tuesday reported that Ko is likely announce Tsai for the position next week or after he returns from a visit to the US.
Tsai previously served as principal of Taichung First Senior High School and Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, as well as Taichung deputy mayor under former Taichung mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). He was also deputy minister of culture from 2015 to 2016.
Asked for comment yesterday, Ko said: “When the time comes, someone will come to work and everyone will know.”
“I do not think about the pan-blue or pan-green camps anymore; I am free from hindrance,” he said when asked if his appointment of Tsai would imply his intention to cooperate with the KMT, similar to his appointment of Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as a deputy mayor before his falling-out with the DPP.
The third deputy mayor would be in charge of supervising the city’s departments of social welfare, education, cultural affairs, and information and tourism, so appointing someone with a background in education would be most suitable, Ko said.
Asked why he has not recruited any DPP members, Ko said that not all personnel assignments have been decided by him alone, such as the decision to make former Taipei city councilor Chen Lee-hui (陳孋輝) the director of partially city government-owned bus carrier Metropolitan Transport Corp, which was suggested by the Taipei Department of Transportation.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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