Suspending this effort

As is clear with the lack of updates for a LONG time, I had not been keeping up with this blog. Personal, followed by professional issues have led to a downward spiral in my life I have only recently begun to recognize and address.

Things are changing and I am going to be going through rather turbulent times for the foreseeable future. When I had started this blog, I had hoped to be reasonably conscientious with updating it, but that's all gone now.

I thank all who have chosen to visit and I apologize for not being able to keep up. I wish everyone all the best!

August 28th - Update: Parliamentary Activities to Begin Soon, Starting Oct 10th.

From the Singapore Parliament website:

Press Release (1 August 2011)
The First Session of the 12th Parliament will commence on 10 October 2011 at 3.30 pm.
The House will debate on the President's Address from 17 - 21 October 2011.

Let us now see what/how our Tanjong Pagar Representatives do! Time to pay attention, folks!

August 28th - Back!

Back from my "brief" hiatus. It was a case of one-thing-led-to-another and there did not seem to be any planned activity in Parliament until the Presidential Elections were over, so there was no impetus to update this blog just to "report" on trivial changes.

I was, however, keeping an eye on the Town Council webpage and was a little disappointed to note that they had only updated the image of the 5-man 2011 GE version about a month after I stopped posting. I had also been looking forward to the new Town Council map for a while now, but no dice!

With respect to the map, I am now interested to know just which areas in Tanjong Pagar Town Council are actually run by the Town Council, which are run by the People's Association (PA) and which are still under the control of HDB. This is in light of the recent spat between the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council and the PA, HDB and MND over the use of public spaces within the boundaries of the constituencies.

I think it is about time we fully understood, as residents, just how our estates are run. This ties in with practical aspects of our lives (the request for the use of public space) as well as the abstract principles of a democracy (as a liberal, it seems rather odd to me that my duly elected representative cannot be allowed to meet me in a public space anytime I wish - this applies to all representatives).

Finally, as a side-note and a shout-out, I'm glad for friends who live within the confines of Tanjong Pagar GRC. They *finally* got to vote (in the Presidential Elections), many for the very first time in their lives! Yay!

A brief hiatus

Hi all,

I'm sorry, but I'm taking a break from this blog to take care of a stray cat I picked up until Animal Services here at Eugene can take care of him and find him a foster home.

I cannot focus on that, my work and taking care of this blog all at the same time. Hopefully, things will have resolved itself by the time parliament sessions begin.

May 21st 2011 - Updates and a little format formalization.

The beginning of the 12th Parliament is nearly upon us with the official appointment of the cabinet due today. I will start with a standard table (which can be refined) from now on to track Parliamentary progress at the start of each subsequent post:

Parliamentarian	Attendance	Votes	Legislation Sponsored	Miscellaneous	Links
Lee Kuan Yew	0	0	0	3 Updates	NA
Indranee Rajah	0	0	0	1 Update	NA
Lily Neo	0	0	0	NA	NA
Chan Chun Sing	0	0	0	5 Updates	NA
Chia Shi-Lu	0	0	0	NA	NA
Worker's Party	0	0	0	2 Updates	NA

---

UPDATES

Tanjong Pagar

• As of today, the Tanjong Pagar Town Council page has NOT been updated.
• Chan Chun Sing is now Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports AND Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts.
• Lee Kuan Yew has resigned as Chairman of GIC and has been appointed Senior Advisor to GIC.
• Lee Kuan Yew has turned down an offer from the Prime Minister to officially be granted the "Emeritus" tag (it was unclear if it was meant to be applied to "Minister Mentor"). [May 19th 2011 - http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC110519-0000253/MM-Lee-and-SM-Goh-to-become-Senior-Advisers-to-GIC,-MAS-respectively].
• I could NOT find any updates on Chan Chun Sing's Facebook page on the next Informal Policy discussions (HDB pricing). Did I miss something? (I might have to "like" him after all, just to keep up).
• Chan Chun Sing's (publicly announced) email and MPS session:   chancs[DOT]bv[AT]gmail[DOT]com, Mondays 7:30pm onwards.
• From Chan Chun Sing's Facebook page - it looks like Indranee Rajah is currently representing Lee Kuan Yew for MPS at Tanjong Pagar. It is unclear from the context if this is temporary.

• Chan Chun Sing proposes mural art for void decks on Facebook. I thought this was post-worthy since it affects the community and it raises the appropriate questions of who gets to decide and who foots the bill.
  

Worker's Party

• Sylvia Lim has resigned from her job to focus on work in Parliament (May 14th 2011): http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110514-278889.html
• Last-minute update: The Worker's Party has proposed to merge the services provided by Aljunied and Hougang Town Councils, citing economies of scale and a not-so-smooth handover of Aljunied Town Council. [May 21st 2011 - http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110521-279923.html]. I am quoting the entire article since it is short:

THE Workers' Party (WP) submitted a proposal to merge the town councils of Aljunied GRC and single-seat Hougang last week. WP chief Low Thia Khiang told the Straits Times that it's easier operationally, and that they hope to achieve 'economies of scale in terms of tender of contracts, in terms of purchases made, in terms of projects, (and) hopefully we can get a better bargain'. If approved, it will be chaired by WP's chairman Sylvia Lim, with Hougang MP Yaw Shin Leong and Mr Low as the vice-chairmen. Mr Low also disclosed that some parts of the handover process, has not been smooth. The newly elected MP for Aljunied GRC said that they have been waiting since last week for the town council to provide key information on matters such as the list of service providers and its computer data system. His team also yet to have a face-to-face meeting with the management of the Aljunied Town Council, which had cancelled a meeting scheduled for last Tuesday, according to Mr Low. His party has since turned to HDB for help. According to the paper, Mr Jeffrey Chua, the Aljunied Town Council general manager, said he had informed the Hougang Town Council that it needed more time to compile the complete list of service providers. The Hougang Town Council has also been given the names of service providers whose contracts will expire in the next few months, said Mr Chua. Meanwhile, Mr Low dismissed rumours that the Aljunied Town Council had stopped removing rubbish from HDB blocks in the estate. According to him, the WP found the estates to be well-maintained, after they went on ground inspections in the GRC.

Commentary: From a democratic standpoint, I personally do not approve of this proposal. It messes with the transparency and accountability of the way public money is disbursed and handled. I cannot, however, logically argue against the points made ... except that it feels disturbing to me.

May 14th 2011 - [NEWS] Informal Policy Discussion Forum by MP Chan Chun Sing

As a reader pointed out to me, Mr. Chan had organized an Informal Policy Discussion Forum just today.

Full disclosure: I had actually known about the event, but it did not occur to me to post the information on this blog. As such, I apologize to the people who would have been interested but were not made aware of it. The good news, is that Mr. Chan will be organizing more. So please keep an eye on posts with [NEWS]. It will contain pertinent updates on upcoming political activities you as residents can participate in

Here is the Facebook link to the pictures Mr. Chan had kept of the event (with reader comments providing *some* context):


Informal Policy Discussion Forum Facebook Pictures and Comments

I (being in the USA) did not attend and I am reconstructing some information from Mr. Chan's comments on Facebook:

1. This particular forum was about Education reform.
2. The next one (as voted on by the participants) will be about HDB flat pricing. It will be scheduled some time next week.
3. His house rules for attendance are:

All Singaporeans welcome. We just hv the foll rules (after yest):
1. Listen with respect.
2.One conversation at one time.
3. Listen with open heart, open mind.
4. Keep Time.
5. No political agenda pse..

Some quotes from Mr. Chan (from Facebook):

Thks to All for the active participation at last night's "Policy Disc". As voted by many of u, we will attempt the challenging topic of "How to Price a HDB flat?" next time we meet. Which night you all prefer? Can't do Mon and Tues - MPS and Walkabout. Meantime, do share readings to prep ourselves. Will announce dates asap once I sort out schedule next wk.

Personal commentary (colored by my biases): This is as close a thing to a Town Hall meeting Tanjong Pagar residents will get. As a Liberal, I like Town Hall meetings and I encourage people interested in policy decision-making to attend. I do not expect the forum format to allow enough time for people to share their personal stories (the whole point of a Town Hall meeting in the USA), but I am encouraged that this forum is not (judging from the Facebook comments) a one-way street of information either.

I do not believe these forums are intended to be an MPS session. Even if you do get to share your personal stories, please do not expect to get them solved on the spot. I would, in fact, strongly discourage this motivation and expectation when attending this forum. I think it would only distract and dilute the value of the forum.

I do feel encouraged by Mr. Chan's words (in spite of my earlier disdain for his "Lanfang Republic" speech), specifically by his encouraging participants to share reading material before the next forum. I think this is of fundamental importance to meaningful discussions (from diverse points-of-view) on matters of policy decision-making. Quantifiable information, true or false, offers a basis for verification, debunking and debate.

That is it for now, I will keep you folks updated as and when I find out more.

Short Update: May 11th 2011 - WP assigns MP to wards

Just read the news:

http://www.straitstimes.com/GeneralElection/News/Story/STIStory_667724.html dated May 12th 2011 Singapore time. (No, I do not time-travel. I prefer to stick to Pacific Standard Time for my post headings instead of making conversions all the time).

That was, admittedly, faster than I had expected. The pertinent information is as follows (I tend to take the reliability of ST links with a pinch of salt, they do not appear to archive their articles indefinitely like the BBC does):

Low Thia Khiang - Bedok Reservoir-Punggol
Sylvia Lim - Serangoon
Chen Show Mao - Paya Lebar
Pritam Singh - Eunos
Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap - Kaki Bukit

The Worker's Party is really hitting the ground running post-GE. I had originally wanted to do a quick commentary this weekend on the issue of cross-party handover of Town Councils, given what was claimed by Mr. Low Thia Khiang regarding Hougang in 1991, his call for a smooth transfer, and how things are transpiring in Aljunied. Objectively speaking, we know nothing about Aljunied as of now. Like a friend stated, some of the problems with services may have been coincidental and disproportionately misconstrued as active acts of punishment. In Science, we have always been trained to look for objective evidence by counting both the hits and the misses. As of now, I do not believe there is any evidence to suggest that the Town Council services at Aljunied are being universally degraded.

An Update (May 12th 2011, PDT): Blogger confirms that there was no deliberate attempt by the outgoing Aljunied Town Council to deny services. Many thanks to the people who took action to do the necessary footwork to verify the claims! This is the kind of active citizenry we need to sift out truth from misconceptions or misinformation. Here is the link with the details: http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/05/feedback-to-challenging-times-by.html.

Meanwhile, to make a direct comparison (probably biased) on the level of energy and enthusiasm of the elected teams, I would like to report that I've just checked the Tanjong Pagar GRC webpage and it still hosts the old information (6-member team with old boundaries). Let us see how long the Tanjong Pagar GRC team waits before they announce their new setup.

My next intended update this weekend will be to focus on the freshly re-elected MPs of the Tanjong Pagar team. This again, to provide background and context for the benefit of subsequent posts to this blog. Also, once they announce information about the new GRC setup, I will proceed to post the maps and information on districts if possible.