Lamma Island’s district councillor has clashed with a resident after a box of cable ties was delivered to her office in protest last Tuesday.
“Tonight at around 7:40pm, there were people making a fuss at my office, I was still working…! I have already reported the police,” District Councillor Yu Lai Fan said on Facebook on May 3.
However, Liz Gower, an education centre manager and resident of Lamma Island for 25 years, has accused Yu of “pretending that her office was attacked by a vandal.”
Gower told HKFP that she had asked Yu to clean up the beach when she spotted a mass of black plastic ties left over from the deconstruction of a podium built for April’s Tin Hau Festival. Due to heavy rain, “I reminded her that it was littering and advised her that if she did not organise the cleaning up operation, the litter would wash into the sea. She refused to do anything that night, I told her that I had no choice but to report the littering to the police which I did.” said Gower on Facebook.
Gower then collected the plastic ties from the beach with her daughter and personally delivered a box full to Yu. She claims that the box tipped over as Yu kicked it and tried to force it out of the door in anger.
“Her reaction was extreme, to say the least,” Gower told HKFP. “We are talking about a box of wet, sandy, plastic ties and not anything foul or odiferous.”
When contacted for a response, the district councillor said that she had no further comment as she had handed the case over to the police.
The police said that they had contacted relevant government departments in regarding the plastic left on the beach. They recorded the incident outside Yu’s office, listing it as a miscellaneous incident.
