Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens City May Give Up Zoo Operations To Private Partnership

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Blackduiker

Well-Known Member
I'm sure many of you regularly read the Zoo News section on this site. And surely many of you have come across this recent news article there, concerning the city of Los Angeles and its $98,000,000 deficit.

Will the City Part Ways with the Zoo, Animal Shelters & Convention Center? - LAist

I'd just like a little feedback on some of your own local zoo's experiences, of becoming privately run institutions, after being run by a municipality for many years. Any pro and con comments out there ZooChatters? This could be a blessing should it become reality, and I know the wish of many involved with this zoo for years.
 
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I've been hearing about this the whole year, but who knows what will happen. The director did mention the possibility of the zoo going private in this year's volunteer party at the zoo, but that's all he said.

I also wonder if it will affect any of the upcoming projects at the zoo.
 
Well, seeing they were funded mostly by public voted bond measures and private donors, I would think not. This has been a consideration here for years, and has happened in other cities. We await comment from those of you that have experienced this in your cities, with your home zoo. Maybe it's up for discussion where you live as well.
 
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One of the pro's I could see happening is putting more climbing structures/trees in the chimpanzee/gorilla exhibits (The city would let them due to polssible injury during cleaning)
 
The LA Municipality considering allowing private ownership for its municipal zoo may/will leave the LA Zoo with either a(n) maintenance or operational deficit accumulated in years of public operation. How an essentially public service enterprise like a zoo would be able to sustain itself as a commercially viable "business" and at the same time continue to develop new exhibits to generate continued public interest is really beyond me.

I do not believe a fully privatised zoo is to the benefit of any community as essentially a zoo is a museum/cultural facility. To me, a zoo performs quite a few public tasks, a.o. conservation education, protection of living natural heritage and operation of ex/in situ conservation activities et cetera ... that as a bottom-line conflicts with any private operation and "income generation" per se.

What to my mind is fundamentally wrong vis a vis any decision by the LA Municipality is that at the heart of this proposed "privatisation" is cost-cutting and selling off "non-core" business (as is usually daubed in political correct circles) and not the making of a viable institution .... :(
 
Blackduiker

And GLAZA does have an ever growing membership of over 65,000 households. That represents tens-of-thousands of family, couples and individual memberships.
 
If anyone want some inside knowledge on what changing a zoo over from city owned to privately owned, just send me a PM. I just went through this 3 months ago when Dallas did the same thing.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Try telling that to resdents of San Diego. (Or, for that matter, to the thousands of residents of my town who are members of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum).
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If you pick up just on the one aspect of my essay you are completely missing the point. The poster of this thread did ask us to give commentary whether it would work a public to private ownership.

If I judge the situation in LA correctly ... finance and funding are 2 different issues alltogether. Whether GLAZA and LA Zoo are financially healthy enough to go it alone is a real gamble ....

While GLAZA can generate much private sponsorship, will it be able to maintain its own in a economically unfavourable climate (also where generating funding for new exhibits is concerned)? Private sponsors will be interested in funding new exhibits, not operational costs involved in managing the facility.



For comparison: if I look at my hometown, we have a municipal zoo ... yet the Municipality is more and more untieing itself from the public interest function that is the zoo and leaving all maintenance backlog (accumulated over the last 2 decades) to the zoo itself. The zoo has a membership core comparable to that of the GLAZA current membership (and we are not even near a supra-million metro area like LA), yet it is unable nor the quite substantial gate entries by the general public on its own to generate the cash required to run the facility ... let alone built new exhibits. That alone ... makes me rather not too confident whether it will work (even though the US has more of a mecenas tradition compared to the EU sit) or what the final outcome might be.

To get a complete picture of the financial sit I would love to see the GLAZA financials - and let that be the judge of any privatisation effort -. I would reserve final judgement untill such time as someone can demonstrate by delving deep into the finances of it all that the zoo can survive on its own both for operational costs, any maintenance backlog and generate the funding for new exhibits or experiences every 1-2 years.
 
Zoogoer2000 said:
One of the pro's I could see happening is putting more climbing structures/trees in the chimpanzee/gorilla exhibits (The city would let them due to polssible injury during cleaning)
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I don't think that is a problem anymore seeing how tall the trees are for the francois' langurs. But I do agree, hopefully the apes get more climbing structures.
 
Our zoo has always been operated as a self-supporting operation. We had an affiliation with the city parks department but severd those ties a few years ago. We've had no problems maintaining our facility and managed to open a $10 million dollar african exhibit this year.
 
Blackduiker

And over a decade ago, a separate city department was created for the L.A. Zoo. And it is my understanding, that has been a vast improvement over being run by the Department of Parks and Recreation for many years. But it remains to be seen, how this latest move would effect the future of the zoo, for better or worse, should it come to fruition.
 
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On thing we found out in Dallas was that as soon as the zoo was taken away from city control, private donors were much more willing to support a fully private organization. Money, lots of money, came in shortly after.
 
Blackduiker

jbnbsn99 said:
On thing we found out in Dallas was that as soon as the zoo was taken away from city control, private donors were much more willing to support a fully private organization. Money, lots of money, came in shortly after.
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Thanks for relaying that positive bit of news jbnbsn99, that must be very encouraging for the Dallas Zoo! Though you never know the outcome from city-to-city.
 
From my point of view the transition has been very positive. I know though that it was very hard on some employees. What the zoo ended up doing was a 3 year transition process in less than 60 days. Some sleepless nights from upper management I believe.
 
Dallas Zoo is privatley operated, I had no idea.

I understand Blackpool in the UK is, wondering what other city run zoos have become private enterprises?
 
Houston Zoo made the transition a few years ago ...I believe that they are quite pleased with the outcome. One big problem is that the employees, who are City employees, often lose all pension and other City benefits if they switch to the zoo foundation employment. Many must, therefore, leave the zoo to remain with the City.

Perhaps @Kifaru Bwana's concerns speak of the differences between the zoo situation in the US and that in the Netherlands? In many cases in the US, the municipalities cannot properly fund or manage the zoo and yet will not allow private funds to take over. Being supported by a municipality, especially a small one (a city rather than a county or larger entity) often means that the zoo is being restrained rather than being developed and grown.

On the other hand, many US zoos have benefited enormously from public bond issues. For that they need to have some link to the municipality. In many cases, the land and physical plant remain under municipal ownership, but the zoo is run (and the animals owned by, staff paid by, etc) the private group. This seems to be the best of both worlds as funds can come from everywhere! That is the case in New York City, Dallas, Cincinnati and elsewhere
 
My essay was meant to signify the situation in Europe (not just the Netherlands) vis a vis public operation versus private ownership of a zoo facility.

What to this moment has not been answered by anyone is what the current financial situation is of GLAZA vs. the LA Zoo finances. Can any of our US forumsters provide an in-depth analysis or indicate where to find the facts re. current LA Zoo finances and maintenance backlog.

Another issue I would like to see clarified more fully: whereas private ownership in the US seems to enable more success in fundraising from private sources ..., the publicly financed bonds by voters will probably be a thing of the past. What is the net financial result to this?
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Another issue I would like to see clarified more fully: whereas private ownership in the US seems to enable more success in fundraising from private sources ..., the publicly financed bonds by voters will probably be a thing of the past. What is the net financial result to this?
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It may seem counter-intuitive, but for the time being these voter bond issues seem to be in fine shape here. New ones have been approved recently and others are being proposed.
 
Voters do continue to approve funding for public cultural institutions. We had a small city election here in Tucson less than two months ago that illustrates this point. A group of realtors and police & fire support groups proposed an amendment to the city charter to require a larger percentage of police officers and fire fighters, but they did not provide any additional funding mechanism. What this meant is that if it passed, the city would be forced (by law) to reduce other services, probably starting with things like parks (which includes Reid Park Zoo), recreation centers, libraries, etc.

At our docent meetings we were told, in essence, passage of this bill would be a disaster for us. The city manager set up a series of public meetings to discuss funding priorities, which many docents attended. They said people strongly supported maintaining funding for parks and similar cultural services (including the zoo).

Since police & fire are obviously popular things to support, I was afraid the bill might pass. But it was OVERWHELMINGLY defeated - I think something like 70% against and 30% for. So in cities like ours that have city (or county) owned zoos, I do believe voters will continue to pass bond issues supporting those institutions.
 
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