Mayor’s remarks:
I. Sports City, Energetic Tainan
1. The biennial Citizens Sports Games will be held in Taichung City, starting this Saturday. On Monday, as a representative of all the citizens, I presented the flag to our athletes, encouraging them to show the result of their training and give a great performance with good sportsmanship. In the last games held in 2014, our team won 13 gold medals, 13 silver medals and 22 bronze medals. This year, our athletes are optimistic of winning the gold medal in various sports such as roller sports, powerlifting, Tai Chi push hands, finswimming, woodball and slow-pitch softball. We hope that our athletes can do their best and win 19 gold medals.
2. The Citizens Sports Games aim to encourage people to exercise regularly and keep healthy. At the flag presentation ceremony, I have reminded everyone that although winning is important, gaining health, respect and friendship through fair play is much more valuable.
3. A country is only great when its people are healthy. Apart from training professional athletes, the city government also encourages citizens to exercise regularly through many constructions, including establishing Tainan Baseball Team, building the Asia-Pacific Baseball Training Center, striving to host the WBSC junior baseball games for three consecutive years, building the Yonghua National Sports Center, promoting sports diplomacy, constructing the Shanhaizun Green Bike Path and promoting T-bike. We continue to work on the development of baseball sports and the promotion of citizens’ health in hopes of turning Tainan into a healthy and livable city.
II. Issues about the Shalun Farm
Because some citizens of other cities, reporters and activist groups have doubts regarding the announcements of the two major industrial zones—the Green Technology Research and Development Zone and the International Film and Television Zone—due to lack of understanding about Shalun Farm, I’d like to correct the misunderstanding :
1. The “Green Technology Research and Development Zone” approved by the Executive Yuan will be located in the High Speed Rail Station District Industrial Zone, and the “Green Life Science and Technology Park” will be located in the residential and commercial district of the developed part of Shalun Park. The Bureau of High Speed Rail, Taiwan Sugar Corporation and a few private enterprises are main owners of these lands. Neither of the two zones is located in Shalun Farm, so this is definitely not “a second Dapu incident”, as the media have claimed. It is unfortunate that our country’s major construction is described in such an inappropriate and misleading way. Tainan’s development has been greatly influenced by the Dapu incident, and even the entirely unrelated Tainan Railway Underground Project has been called the second Dapu incident, which is extremely unfair to Tainan City.
2. As for the International Film and Television Zone that director Ang Lee has suggested, Premier Lin Chuan of the Executive Yuan has announced the project and instructed the Ministry of Culture to establish the zone. Although it is located in Shalun Farm, it only takes up 200 hectares out of 951. We hereby make a public commitment to the citizens: through policy planning including the environmental impact assessment and ecological restoration program, we will definitely minimize the ecological impact. As for the survival of the endangered African grass owl, they mainly live in hills and badlands, including Zuojhen, Nansi, Yujing and Longci. Shalun Farm is only one of the feeding grounds of the African grass owl, so we only need to create an appropriate environment for foraging in the remaining 751 hectares of land. This way, the project will not have an impact on the foraging of African grass owls.
We thank the people for their concerns and welcome any suggestions regarding the promotion of the two major constructions. However, please understand the actual situation before criticizing so that unnecessary problems will not arise during the cooperation between the city government and the central government.
Reports:
I. Tainan City Police Department reports the “Achievements and Prospects of the Establishment of the Public Security Surveillance System”. (refer to written sources for details)
Resolution: Approved for reference filing
Mayor’s Comments:
(1) The city’s surveillance system is connected to the Cloud, so when solving a case, the police can use the license plate recognition function to obtain information such as the crime vehicle’s tracks, interception plans and the search for specific vehicles. This way, we can greatly reduce the time spent on accessing the surveillance system, and the branches can cooperate and assist one another through this system in order to decide the direction of investigation and fight against crime effectively.
(2) Apart from defending social security, the police surveillance system also plays an important role during typhoons, monitoring the 120 sections prone to flooding and traffic jams in the jurisdiction through the emergency operation center. During the rampage of Typhoon Megi, the disaster emergency operation center immediately monitored and handled incidents including the waterlogging at Dawan Road and Daren Street in Yongkang District and the sign falling incident at the intersection of Zhongjheng South Road and Zhonghua Road due to strong gale. I hereby acknowledge its excellent performance.
(3) The final goal of the city’s public security surveillance system is to change the surveillance systems at the main intersections into units with internet connection and license plate recognition function in hopes of constructing a complete technological security network across city. I must emphasize once more that the data in the surveillance system is only used to fight against crime and promote public welfare. The police and other units should be careful to protect the information regarding personal privacy.
(4) We thank the Tainan City Police Department for providing necessary information to the Bureau of Transportation based on the idea of collaboration between agencies and resource sharing to control traffic flow and vehicle speed and set the duration of traffic lights, greatly improving the city’s traffic flow. The Tainan City Police Department also assists the Tainan Public Works Bureau in improving road conditions and the real-time monitoring of constructions. Moreover, it enables the Office of Disaster Prevention and Response to monitor the situation of each district in a disaster, giving full play to the surveillance system and getting the maximum benefit with the government’s limited budget.
(5) We thank the Tainan City Police Department for taking into account the eight principles when building the surveillance system, without being influenced by external pressure. This achievement is worthy of recognition.
II. The Environmental Protection Bureau of Tainan City Government reports the “Achievements and Prospects of the Water Improvement in Tainan City”. (see the written report)
Resolution: Approved for reference filing
Mayor’s Comments:
(1) In the five main river basins of Tainan City, except for Bajhang River and Zengwun River, parts of the Jishuei River, Yanshuei River and Erren River are still heavily polluted. In the past, scrap metal extraction companies along the coast of Erren River greatly affected the ecology, leading to the Green Oysters incident. Due to the incident, Erren River has been called the “Heilongjiang of Taiwan,” implying that the river is severely polluted. To solve the water quality problem of rivers effectively, I established the River Pollution Improvement Committee when I took office, and in 2014, after expansion and reformation, the committee became the Rivers and Marine Pollution Prevention Unit to evaluate the water pollution problem from the perspective of overall water management and strengthening the connections between units to reduce pollution.
(2) In recent years, the Environmental Protection Bureau has organized river patrol teams, utilized scientific instruments and combined with the police’s joint inspection mechanism to prohibit water pollution. Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Bureau has handled 27,483 cases and imposed 1,724 penalties, prohibiting illegal actions through diligent investigation and heavy penalties. As for marine pollution prevention, the Environmental Protection Bureau works with related units inside and outside the government in organizing the annual emergency response educational training for oil pollution and simulating disaster response to enhance the ability to deal with oil pollution. Recently, the city government has also been promoting green animal husbandry, using the wastewater of animal husbandry for farm irrigation, which relieves the river’s burden. The amount of irrigation of Tainan City per year has exceeded 70 thousand metric tons, and the area of irrigation is 116.5 hectares. Every year, we reduce about 8 thousand metric tons of BOD pollutants from wastewater discharged into rivers.
(3) I give special thanks to the team led by Director Lee of the Environmental Protection Bureau. Facing various tasks of environmental protection, the team members have done their job well. I also give special thanks to the Water Resources Bureau for promoting the management of sanitary sewage in 6 water-recycling centers in the past 6 years. Now it has managed 115 thousand households and finished the construction of 6 water purification plants, significantly reducing the impact of sanitary sewage on the rivers’ water quality. I also thank Director Syu of the Tainan City Government Agriculture Bureau and his team for their hard work and achievement of promoting the “Fertile Field, Clear Water—The Midas Touch” project which turns wastewater from animal husbandry into water for irrigation.
(4) In recent years, through the cooperation and hard work of the city government and related units, the city’s river pollution has been gradually reduced. Since 2010, we have reduced 2.99 kilometers of the heavily polluted reaches of Erren River, 2.53 kilometers of Jishui River and 6.97 kilometers of Yanshui River. Compared to the number of fish species ten years ago (2007), the number of fish species of Erren River has tripled. The eel larvae of the estuary have returned to the river and become one of the important local catches. I hereby encourage each unit to continue to improve the water environment of Tainan City and build a livable and happy Tainan with the beauty of water.