Ko Samui city - update

After I blogged yesterday on the forthcoming creation of Samui city, I searched a little bit more and also posted at the ThaiVisa forum. From there I now got hinted that the local English newspaper Samui Express had an article about it quite recently - too bad they don't put the date of the article on the website, but according to ThaiVisa it was written on March 1.

According to that article, the upgrade of the subdistrict municipality to a city will be sent to the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) soon and they expect approval within this month.

“I think we will become city by early March. We want the Suratthani governor to approve this as soon as possible and send the proposal to the Department Of Provincial Administration,” Varakorn said in an interview with Samui Express.

The only problem which was left was the objection of some of the subdistrict and village leaders, as these posts will get abolished within a city. The population already approved the change in a referendum earlier.

Besides Samui passing all three requirements to become a city, its residents also overwhelmingly approved cityhood for the resort island in a referendum.

So it seem I have misread that Siam Rat article, maybe it was about sending the request to DOPA and not yet the approval. I'll take a closer look at the news section of DOPA's website, maybe I am able to spot it there - I still don't know where to find such announcements on time without waiting several months until it gets published in the Royal Gazette. Samui is a special case, thanks to the fact there are so many tourists there it has some English coverage of local news.