Money shortfalls and a less-than-resourceful state legislature spell doom for the Detroit Zoo. But considering that this problem was in extense as the Super Bowl was being planned, why didn't someone think to make a plan to help save it using the NFL's marque game as a backdrop?
This is a signal of how far The Motor City has to go to regain its past glory. It's got to find a way to solve this problem.
No zoo? Fans roar back in disbelief
Fighting back: Lawmaker working to reinstate state aid
February 21, 2006
BY MARISOL BELLO and HUGH McDIARMID JR.
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
The fight to keep the Detroit Zoo open became, well, a zoo on Monday as the Detroit City Council defended itself against a firestorm of angry complaints from city and suburban residents who don't want to see the more than 75-year-old institution closed.
At the same time, other city and zoo officials scrambled to come up with a compromise to keep the zoo open even as they moved ahead with plans to shutter it by late spring.
An Oakland County state legislator whose district includes the zoo in Royal Oak, said Monday that she was planning to plead the zoo's case in Lansing today in an effort to save $4 million in state aid to fund it.
State Sen. Shirley Johnson, R-Royal Oak, who proposed the aid, said she planned to call the governor's office and the state's budget director this morning to find a way to reinstate the aid, which had hinged on the city turning over daily operations of the facility to the nonprofit Detroit Zoological Society by Saturday.
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