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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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Earth Day at the Oakland Zoo: New and Improved Greenwashing?

By Laura on March 27, 2012 in Nature & Wildlife, Oakland Politics

Everyone is welcomed (well, almost everyone) to the Oakland Zoo for its Earth Day,April 14. The theme this year is “Action for Animals”. Local environmental organizations have been invited for a fee of $30 to set up a table and bring informational materials about what they do to protect the environment. It is suggested that groups may want to bring materials to conduct letter-writing campaigns to further their cause. The event is described on the zoo’s website:

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One huge hunk of Swiss Cheese: the “environmental report” for the Zoo’s “conservation” theme park

By Ruth on March 14, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Opinions & Editorials

The Zoo's crowded parking lot

During the multiple public hearings leading up to City Council approval of the Zoo’s “conservation” theme park in June, 2011, we heard a lot of talk about the environmental review document for the proposed development. Waving around a City-prepared report that comprised hundreds of pages, some development enthusiasts claimed that the environmental impacts of the project had been subjected to an unusually thorough level of scrutiny. Well, don’t buy it. The problem is that in environmental review, it is quality—not quantity—that really matters. This report is one huge hunk of Swiss cheese: riddled with holes big enough to drive an elephant through.

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Oakland debt will be raised with zoo’s new multi-million dollar aerial gondola

By Jim on March 8, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Uncategorized

The Oakland Zoo expansion plan being pursued by zoo management with the approval of the Oakland City Council includes a big and expensive aerial gondola.

You might ask, with the new City Administrator, Deanna Santana, noting in her December budget letter that the City doesn’t have money to replace aging fire pump and ladder trucks, or pay off the debt from past City projects, or keep the City infrastructure safe,…why would Oakland choose to go further into debt to help buy and maintain the expensive cars, wires, power equipment, and massive columns for a big new zoo gondola.

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