Woah, people are freaking out over what’s going down at the Louisville Zoo these days.
By now, everyone is aware of Greg Fischer’s push to privatize the zoo, right?
So it will come as no surprise to you that Mark Zoeller, the Assistant Director at the Zoo is leaving in two weeks to take a job in Public Works. Why? Could it be to protect his public pension when the Zoo is no longer controlled by Metro Government? You can put your money on yes. And Zoo staff say he and the Director (Walczak) know what’s going on behind the scenes without sharing it with longtime employees.
This comes after the resignation of the Development Coordinator last August. The Development Director left in November/December.
And several others are expected to jump ship soon. Gotta keep those taxpayer-funded retirement plans, ya know.
It’s being okayed by board members because they know where their bread is buttered. Doesn’t smell right.
15 responses so far ↓
1 G'town Reader // Feb 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm
I don’t think that’s the Zoo Doo that I smell…
2 Steve // Feb 8, 2012 at 3:23 pm
I think I just saw that movie. The zoo runs into trouble when the bank account runs dry. The morale of the workers starts to dip and they fear the owner will sell the property.
3 Chris Tobe // Feb 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm
I take my kids probably twice a month, and have noticed the staffing levels going to all time lows.
I am not sure how this would work
4 Bill // Feb 8, 2012 at 4:48 pm
You can go back to the Happy Pants administration to why the zoo is going to be privatized. One is because of the huge payouts they had to make after the train incident and then of course look at the usual mismanagement by Louisville Metro. A city that can’t even properly do garbage pickup is questionable in handling a zoo. With the way they do things here in Louisville especially Metro Government, they should just go ahead and put a fence around the whole county and call it the Louisville Metro Zoo. Its strange that for generations the city ran the zoo but now they can’t manage their affairs. Sounds like the rest of city government. I heard they even moved an exhibit of jackasses to Metro Hall. Even one braying jackass got elected as mayor. One can’t tell much of a difference from his predecessor except they have an office at 527 West Jefferson Street.
The problem is that they’ve allowed the cronies to run things and not have any accountability and its affecting all sorts of things that used to be well ran like the Zoo. Maybe Greg has to sell it off to deal with the huge budget deficit we are having to deal with now. Seems that they should go back many years and start looking at the activities of the current Lieutenant Governor that was previous in office and where all the money went to. Moreover, whose pocket it went into. For example, Bud Schardein, Cordish Company, etc. I’m sure we can add more to that list.
5 Bill // Feb 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Guess who is going to report to Mark? Betty Younis. Sound like he is getting set up to fail.
6 Studs Turkle // Feb 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm
It is my understanding that the Louisville Zoo is mostly self supporting as far as their operating budget is concerned. The pension issue aside, I doubt things would change much if it were privatized. In fact, with a little elbow grease and the proper connections, the Zoo could raise an endowment to make up the Metro portion of their budget and very likely be much better off.
As far as staffing levels go, Every Metro agency has lost employees since the merger. It broke the city. Metro has experienced budgetary shortfalls every year since merger and has cut staffing to close the gap. Layoffs have been minimal but when an employee quits, gets fired or retires they are not replaced.
7 soundslikeanapologist // Feb 8, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Studs sounds like a Fischer/Zoo apologist. The Zoo’s executive staff has been around forever. The ideas and work ethic are stale and old school. Walczak isn’t a business guy, according to Google, he was a former keeper at the the zoo. With amount of dough that place pulls in from visitors, there shouldn’t be a revenue problem. Walczak was shows up at every event including fundraisers at pizza moguls house for Peepaw/Mayor for Life. He spends too much time away from the Zoo being dragged around by his jock strap by his development directors. Sounds like he needed to spend less time kissing ass and more time leading. Fischer needs to replace him or anyone that served as a director for more than a decade. Like I said the guy has no business experience. He builds a brand new $20 million exhibit while the rest of the zoo is older than dirt.
8 Barbara // Feb 8, 2012 at 8:13 pm
The Zoo needs someone less worried about saving the planet and more on saving the Louisville Zoo. Most parents realize food prices will be high at most attractions. But, the Zoo vendors are horrible. The food is poor and the prices match Disney World. The Zoo is no Disney World. Just for convience most parents would rather eat at the zoo if the Zoo offered good food reasonably priced.. Revenue Revenue Revenue, thats what its all about. Until then we will eat before we get there or eat out of the cooler in my trunk
9 Ain't no picnic // Feb 8, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Yeah the food sucks. high prices for crap I wouldn’t feed the animals at LMAS. Food trucks need to hang out in the parking lot. Wonder what the food vendor contract looks like. Unhealthy frozen mass produced crap. No wonder Jim King lost all that weight. He stopped eating at the Zoo! The only good thing the Zoo does is its School at the Zoo program that was mentioned in the paper a while back. Poor kids getting an edication at the zoo is a good thing. Poor kids getting loaded on unhealthy crap is a bad thing. Wonder how Fischer’s board appointees will handle Jim King’s wife . Since there’s no love between Fischer and King. The old guard vs. the new guard and with the same result. Good Employees and taxpayers get screwed.
10 Steve // Feb 9, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I agree the food is not good. Zoo folks should talk with some local restaurant folks. I suspect some would welcome the opportunity to work with them
11 Studs Turkle // Feb 9, 2012 at 6:25 pm
What exactly am I making excused for you simpering moron?
12 totalfailure // Feb 9, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Studs, you are obviously a city employee that managed to find the time to visit dictionary.com during the workday. The Zoo is poorly managed and had same worn out folks there forever. The damn polar bear tweet and posts to facebook more than Fischy and 14 year old after a case of red bull. Laaaawd the city is filled with the self-rightous. It is a good zoo but with the right leadership, it could be a great Zoo. The Director needs to go back to cleaning snake poop at the Herp exhibit. He lacks a backbone, vision and leadership skills to move forward. He is just a follower. Building a multi million dollar exhibit while the rest of the place goes to hell is poor judgement. Putting fancy rims on a car that doesn’t run all the time doesn’t increase its value. Its what is under the hood that counts. Obviously no one has checked under the hood at the Zoo in awhile.
13 The Ghost of Ida Goldberg // Feb 10, 2012 at 7:23 am
Dear Studs,
Metro government got rid of experienced employees so they could deploy their new plan to cook the books and fleece the tax payers, which explains the scandal at MSD, how the non-profit water co has $10 million to lend the city, and how Cordish now owns half of downtown. It might look like total employees are down, but there are loads of people working there under private contract making oodles of moolah.
xoxox
Your Dead Wifey
14 Guuuurlplease // Feb 10, 2012 at 6:29 pm
The Science Center board and Waterfront Development board have solid leaders at the helm. The Zoo doesn’t. Other zoo’s are constructing $8 to $12 million dollar exhibits not $25 million-plus. Maybe they should focus on being a local zoo and not kentucky kingdom light with Spongebob and Ropes courses, and mass produced uber expensive crap for food. The Zoo’s leadership team needs new blood. Get someone who focuses on management and community not a professional ass kisser. He had to have his board chair complain about cuts. He did nothing. He doesn’t have the guts to tell staff the truth or think for himself. He’s either hiding behind closed doors in his office or he’s not there. The Board probably doesn’t have a clue how inefficient and inept the Zoo is in its day-to-day operations. The City would rather recycle former hack employees so they go along with the status quo rather hire people who can actually do the job.
15 Studs Turkle // Feb 10, 2012 at 6:48 pm
You people need to develop some reading comprehension skills. At no point did I comment on the management of the Zoo. I commented on fiscal issues and said that they would be better off as a private entity if they could raise an endowment to make up for the Metro contributed portion of their budget. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how that is being an apologist for Metro government.
As for me being a Metro employee commenting during the work day. Well, that is just asinine. If you would bother to look you would see that each comment is time stamped. 6:30 pm is hardly during the work day. I have a job. I do it well and I don’t spend time commenting on websites during work hours.
The response to my comment about Metro staffing issues is just a loony screed. It does not merit a response.
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