Dallas, Texas city councilors voted unanimously Aug. 12 to turn the operations of that city’s zoo over to the private Dallas Zoological Society. The transition will take place Oct. 1. Dallas Morning News reporter Rudolph Bush
states, the move “is expected to save the city [read taxpayers] some $1.5 million this year and tens of millions in coming years.†Allen Nyhuis,
coauthor of America's Best Zoos,
notes, “Privatization has worked very well at zoos in Phoenix, Indianapolis, and others. The Dallas Zoo should only get better now.†The councilors at
Metro, the regional government that "owns" the Oregon Zoo, might consider putting the privatization issue on their agenda. After all, running a zoo is not a core, nor proper, function of government.
Then gargbage and dump Metro.
And while we're at it fire everyone at the PDC and return Urban Renewal to honest and limited use for genuine blight problems.
any animals and there's a lot of walking involved just to get where you can't see anything. When you so see some of them it was usually uninteresting. There were some plaster versions of some animals near where they're supposed to be, and I gathered afterwards that this is so people can see what the animals you can't see are supposed to look like. A real dud. It might fail if not subsidized, so that's what needs to happen to it. And to think we had to spend all that money for the tunnel and elevator system to get to this big bore of a zoo.
What's worse, this dreadful zoo experience has turned us off zoos so that we probably won't even bother with the one in Seattle next year even though it's highly thought of.
Bob Tiernan
Portland
In 2004, the zoo improperly transferred $719,415 of taxable zoo income to the Zoo foundation, which then returned the money to the zoo. The zoo treated the returned money as a donation, which saved the zoo $56,489 in excise tax that otherwise would have been due to Metro.
Metro also fixes their gate numbers by busing in captive public school children every year.
A ridiculous practice and lousy field trip.
The complete absence of integrity at these bureaucracies leaves the taxpayers who fund them
without any genine oversight or accountability.
Is public ownership and management of the zoo really an issue worth making a fuss about?
Bob T:
What really stands out for me is that it's a crappy zoo. Even with government ownership (not public, but government) maintained, a better option for the zoo's renovation of X-number of years ago would have been to relocate it on the grounds of one of the many government golf courses which would have given us a zoo that's easier to walk around for many older people and others who can't get around too well, and would be far easier to get to considering there'd be no need for the hugely expensive tunnel section and elevator system.
Bob Tiernan
Portland