SocraticGadfly: Dallas Mayor Leppert is Schwarzenegger or Rick Perry on Zoo

July 30, 2009

Dallas Mayor Leppert is Schwarzenegger or Rick Perry on Zoo

Really, Tom Leppert? Privatizing the Dallas Zoo?

Other than taking a page from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on privatizing popular recreational services, both Leppert and Dallas Zoological Society President Michael Meadows appear to have been drinking Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s Kool-Aid, claiming the zoo can be run both more cheaply and better in private hands.

Whatever happened to the old idea of getting Dallas County to help with expenses? And, in privatizations of this sort, salaries get whacked. Given Dallas’ gorilla and elephant problems in the past, do you want to downgrade staffing even more by chasing people off?

To compare this to the privatization of Houston’s zoo, which has more land, and is in a larger park system, somewhat comparable to Fair Park in Dallas, is ridiculous, too.

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