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CONTINUED...Arp Things Rg^Jly Ljrfc4nkJjr%u00ab%u00ab% 4rv F I n . v / p u a . L i i < cthese problems, are basically helpless; the CETA workers, for instance, who are seven strong (Sandy is one of them) are assigned to specific animal houses. Policing, as such, is left to the city police, and in this case the police who cover all of Prospect Park are also assigned to the zoo. There are, understandably, not many police in evidence on this sunny day, when hundreds may come through the zoo but likely thousands will come through the park itself.The Parks Department says things are looking up at the Prospect Park Zoo. Public Information Director Skip Garrett notes, for instance, that $65,000 rolled into the zoo at the beginning of April to refurbish the cat and horn animal houses. And he points out that Sandy, one of the seven CETA-paid workers, may be working with more staff if the federal government approves the hiring of six more workers.The zoo is presently staffed with 22 full-time employees with 17 additional persons hired to work in the children%u2019s farm. Six more CETA workers would bring the zoo to its full compliment of 28. The Monkey and Bird house is next on the renovation list and a contract has finally been let to put up a perimeter fence around the zoo%u2014a project that%u2019s been talked about for well over a year. The fence would make it possible for the zoo to fill some empty cages%u2014particularly the sea lions pool, which has stood empty for the last seven years.fr ien d s HelpMany of these newly funded renovations are the results of well-won concessions on the part of the Friends of Prospect Park Zoo%u2014a group that formed after press coverage revealed understaffing and a long list of overdue repairs at the zoo.%u201c Volunteer effort is what running city-funded institutions are all about these days,%u201d says Diana Henley, who heads up the Zoo friends group. %u2018%u2018If you don%u2019t have people who are really concerned and offer to spend some of their spare time in a place like the zoo, the city sure isn%u2019t going to pull the lead all by itself. %u2019 %u2019Not being able to %u2018%u2018pull the load all by itself%u201d is also what Sandy talks about when she discusses the city%u2019s priorities. %u2018%u2018This place isn%u2019t like a playground that suddenly falls apart, you know,%u201d Sandy says. %u201cProblems here affect the animals and some of us have a lot of respect for life. We can%u2019t stand to see people barbecuing on the\is just another city agency scrounging in the bureaucraticmorass to establish itself as a priority. 9grass, or waiting for the vet to come to take care of a sick animal. It%u2019s hard to understand what those people downtown are doing%u2014they aren%u2019t zoo people.%u2019%u2019No. the neonle in the P arts TTenartmentarsenal are not %u201czoo people.%u201d %u201cThere are a lot of other things that this department takes in,%u201d says Garret. %u201c All the city parks and programs, special events and beaches fall within our coverage.%u201d Garret%u2019s office, for instance, is staffed only with himself and one other, part-time person.PROBLEMSA classic case of people putting pressure on the city is the 1978-9 zoo budget. It%u2019s a $3.5 million operating budget for the threer i t v 7 A H C ------P r o e n o o f nr%A 1711 1 o Vt i %u00bb~ %u2014------* %u25a0 %u201c'%u201cr*%u201d* *%u201c*'%u2022 - .%u00ab..eMeadow%u2014with Prospect getting $1.2 million. In April, the $3.5 million had been slashed back to $1.6.Three years before that, in October 1974, zookeeper Ray Fitzgerald locked himself in the monkey house to protest conditions at the zoo. Fitzgerald%u2019s protest, along withthe arrest of supervisor Walter Neumann for shooting pigeons and strangling a guinea pig, brought plenty of pressure on the city., _____%u2019 %u2022 **VI%u00bb AAWAAV'jr J A 11V 1IU O U 1 U1W 4USJKJ g i u u pcame to order last year, it was time for change at the zoo. The Friends painted cages, took donations for animals and solicited and got support%u2014including support from the Parks Department.But even now as the funds and repairs have begun to trickle in, zoo personel, like7 ^ 0 j u u A j r iSandy, worry about the %u201cnon-zoo people downtown.%u201d%u201cThe city wouldn%u2019t do anything without pressure,%u201d says John Kinzig, supervisor for the zoo. Kinzig points to the perimeter fence%u2014which is now federal regulation for all facilities around the country. %u201c We never would have gotten that contract bidded out if it wasn%u2019t for pressure from the Department of Agriculture,%u201d he said.But the fence is just a start, according to what Kinzig would like to see done. %u201c I want to have the moats fixed in the polar beat exhibit. There%u2019s no drainage system ifthey don%u2019t work properly. The bear%u2019s excretion is flushed into the pool that they swim in. There%u2019s no reason why they shouldn%u2019t get fixed, but I%u2019ve got to keep presenting it as a high priority.Kinzig says he doesn%u2019t know where the money for renovations and construction has come from. The money, he says, simply %u201c became available%u201d this past spring for the work. %u201c Who knows where it comes from?%u201d he asked adding, %u201c It%u2019s not our business to ask.%u201d%u2018MISUNDERSTANDINGS%u2019Last March, Prospect Zoo Supervisor Robert Beach said that he presented the problem of a critical zoo meat shortage as a %u2018high priority%u2019%u2014but nothing was done about it anyway, and the animals went without meat for five days. Beach was suspended from his job.%u201cThat was a misunderstanding,%u201d asserts Kinzig. %u201c The Brooklyn office has known about a meat shortage problem for over a year now.%u201dBeach has consistently maintained that he tried to contact %u201c someone%u201d in the Parks Department who had been alerted that because of city billing problems, bills were to be paid as soon as possible when shortages became critical. That person, Beach has said, did not follow through. Beach is now awaiting a hearing sometime in August. So far, the hearing has been cancelled three times. %u201cThe case is being reinvestigated,%u201d say the Parks Department officials.It isn%u2019t difficult to see how what happened to Robert Beach occured%u2014in a very real sense, the zoo is just another city agency scrouhging in a bureaucratic morass and tight budget to establish itself as %u2018apriority.%u2019%u201c He did his job by calling the Parks Departm ent,%u201d said one zoo worker, referring to the Beach incident. %u201c But he also alerted people to all the problemshere. And then they needed somebody to hang it on.%u201d%u201cIf the problem had been a lack of office supplies,%u2019%u2019 said Kinzig, %u201c nobody would have noticed. But it was food for the animals, and people notice that.%u201dPeople, like the meat supplier, saw that the city was making good on its reputation for not paying bills on time. %u201c We could all see from this incident that feeding the animals and taking care of them wasn%u2019t a city priority,%u201d said the zoo worker.The worker, like others at the zoo, maintain that Beach is a casuality of this %u201c priority%u201d war being waged between the citizens and zooworkers on one side and the city bureaucracy on the other.%u201cRight now, there are no guards or gates to keep people from getting into the zoo after hours,%u201d Sandy says. %u201cThere aren%u2019t enough cops to enforce the laws. They send guys in here to pave the curbs along the walkways when the cages and windows are broken. I just don%u2019t know how they figure priorities.%u201dPerhaps the most telling aspect of the zoo and its problems is the elephant house, a lovely and actually charming structure, round with a marble floor, topped with a ceiling mural of elephants and people walking. A statue in the center of the \to the grace of the building, lends it an air of by-gone era pride in detail and environmental aesthetics.But the beautiful elephant house ceiling is chipping and falling away in many parts; the cage bars are rusted; windows areI____1____ HPl. - L . .! 1 * %u00ab%u00ab%u25a0%u00ab. U1 U1VC1 1 . A l i e U U U U l l l g a U C l l g l l l lb notruined, by any means, but it%u2019s a sad picture, and the visitor is reminded of what it once was%u2014and what it might be.And as sad a shape as the elephant building is in, it%u2019s the best condition that any animal house at the Prospect Park Zoo can claim.July 13,1978, PHOENIX, Page 13