[From farm safety to food safety, mayors and county magistrates, please answer]Taipei City: A hundred things await doing; increase the budget for nutritious school lunches, enact a self-governance ordinance on food safety, and create edible landscapes

“From Agricultural Safety to Food Safety, Asking the County and City Mayors” series arrives at its fourth stop, Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, China. Independent mayor Ko Wen-je had already dominated media coverage across Taiwan, China before the election with his sharp and blunt remarks, winning the votes of 850,000 Taipei citizens. After the election he moved swiftly to tear out the bus-only lane on Zhongxiao West Road that had sat idle for 8 years, declaring his determination to govern. With food safety crises breaking out frequently in recent years, he also drew up plans one after another for a “Garden City” and the “Taipei City Food Safety Self-Governance Ordinance.”

In an interview with Newsmarket, Ko Wen-je kept his frank personality, now scratching his hair, now holding his forehead, repeatedly stressing that his biggest impression after 20 days on the job was: “Taipei City truly has a hundred things waiting to be done.” Hurrying over for the interview, he moved seamlessly into his next appointment. Because his work is so busy, he often can only eat microwaved food from a convenience store. But he said bluntly that food safety should never have been a problem at all, and that weak enforcement is the biggest culprit. If health bureau inspections get “swept under the rug,” “please tell me directly.”