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It’s Your Zoo – You’re Paying (and Paying and Paying) for It

By Jim on May 11, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Oakland Politics, Opinions & Editorials

Money - the Big Problem with Oakland City Government and the Oakland Zoo

It comes as no surprise that the Oakland Zoo has announced that it will seek yet another source of public funding (up to $5 million a year), this time from Alameda County residents. The zoo has been soliciting support for the county-wide tax measure on its website page, “It’s Your Zoo.” The zoo already receives money from Alameda and Contra Costa residents through the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) which taps residents for a portion of their parcel taxes through its special tax district (check your property tax bill and you’ll see it listed).

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Extra! Extra! Stop the Presses! After over four years of pressure, City lists Knowland Park on its Parks Website

By Ruth on May 4, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Personal Journals

After over four years of pressuring City elected officials and staff to allow the public to know that Knowland Park exists, Friends of Knowland Park today celebrate a small victory: the Park is FINALLY listed on the City’s website: (http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/opr/s/Parks/index.htm).

Part of the list of Oakland's 128 Parks. Only four are linked to web pages containing further information.

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Whose Offices Will be in the Planned Ridgetop Center?

By Ruth on April 27, 2012 in Oakland Politics

And Couldn’t They Be Someplace Else?

The Zoo's published depiction of the ridge-top building as seen from Golf Links Rd.

The Oakland Zoo’s development plans for Knowland Park include offices—yes, offices– in the 34,000 square foot, 3 story central gondola terminal building, which is planned to also include a restaurant and gift shop. The whole thing will be perched atop the most sensitive and pristine area of the park, a ridge where the threatened Alameda whipsnake was trapped in surveys, where a statewide rare plant community of chaparral provides cover and habitat for many kinds of animals, and where scat from large predators is regularly found. Why, you might ask yourself, would a “conservation”-minded organization decide to build a huge structure in that particular location, rather than looking for a site closer to the existing Zoo or on already-disturbed land?

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Bait and Switch: How the Zoo and the City of Oakland used a 1998 MOU to Mislead the Community

By Ruth on April 4, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Opinions & Editorials

The current legal case is a complicated one. Part of the difficulty arises because a very different version of the Zoo’s expansion plan was approved in 1998 than the one approved in 2011. When the Zoo presented its expansion plan in 1997, there had been considerable community outcry, because those plans were quite different from what had been originally described in the 1996 Zoo Master Plan. So, city-facilitated meetings between community representatives and the Zoo were held over a period of many months. These meetings, described as grueling by the volunteer community representatives, finally resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Dr. Joel Parrott, the executive director of the Zoo, and representatives of community groups, one of which was the direct predecessor of Friends of Knowland Park.

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21st Century Conservation

By Ruth on March 28, 2012 in Nature & Wildlife, Opinions & Editorials

Fledged swallow chicks in the nest waiting to be fed. Photo by Anna Hesser.

What does conservation mean in the 21^st century, and why is it so needed? The world faces an unprecedented loss of species as we enter the second decade of this century. As the renowned naturalist E.O. Wilson wrote, way back in 1980:

“The worst thing that can happen, will happen… Not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process going on in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

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