The Miaoli City Sports Center has been handed over to World Gym to operate, drawing criticism that it has effectively become a private gym — bad news for taxpayers and for residents hoping to use the facility at low cost.

• Lin Yueh-chin, the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate for Miaoli City mayor, said the sports center, built with taxpayers' money on government land, operates in practice almost like a private fitness club.
• The contract collects only NT$2.6 million in royalties per year, with no mechanism for sharing excess profits, so no matter how much the operator earns, residents get none of it.
• Memberships are sold on a single-site basis or through three-year contracts, rather than the single-entry admission typical of public sports centers, making the barrier to entry markedly higher.
• The operator holds the management rights for nine years, with a possible six-year extension, yet public-benefit commitments such as wellness classes and venue rentals are written in for only two years.
• Mayor Yu Wen-chung countered that the city office still runs the badminton hall and multipurpose courts itself, that spin bikes inside the facility are free to use, and that public-interest groups may apply to use the venue on the weekly Monday closing day.

Outlook: The dispute is set to become a focal point of the Miaoli City mayoral race, and the contract's profit-sharing and public-benefit clauses may come under pressure for review.