Save Knowland Park | Tag Archive

Tag Archives | Oakland Zoo

Contradictions Finally Catching Up with Zoo Executives

By Ruth on September 2, 2012 in Campaign Updates

Proof from the measure's wording that measure A1 could be be used to fund expansion

What a week! The campaign to defeat Measure A1 (the zoo’s parcel tax measure) in the November election has really started to heat up. We have been incredibly busy meeting with key individuals and groups to explain why Measure A1 isn’t “A-1”. So far, our efforts are bearing fruit—most of the groups we have spoken with have decided to oppose the parcel tax measure; a few have decided to take no position (including two that the zoo had been trying to woo before we found out about this measure). Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

David, Goliath, and Our Place to Make a Stand

By Ruth on August 23, 2012 in Uncategorized

The extraordinary view at Knowland Park.

We filed our Argument Against the zoo’s parcel tax measure (which has been given the title Measure A1 (!)) last week. Five organizations signed the argument: California Native Plant Society, Friends of Knowland Park, Alameda Creek Alliance, California Native Grasslands Association and Resource Renewal Institute (the parent group of our Coalition Partner, Defense of Place). If you are a member of any of these groups, please email or call them and thank them for their staunch support. The Sierra Club also authorized us to include the factual statement that they had opposed the Knowland Park expansion project—again, let them know you appreciate this.

For many groups, it takes real courage of conviction to go against the zoo’s political machine. Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

Who Knew? Zoo Board Members Are Knowland Park Supporters!

By Ruth on August 6, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Oakland Politics

A warm welcome to our Zoo Board Member supporters! As many of you know, we have had such a flurry of people joining us that we have hardly had time to do more than keep adding the email addresses to our database. But recently, going through the list in preparation for our campaign, we discovered that zoo Board President Steve Kane and Board Member B. Reid Settlemier, among others, had signed up as Friends of Knowland Park supporters! Mr. Settlemier had signed up with an email address that didn’t happen to include his last name, but an automatic vacation message let us know who he was. What a great development! Maybe this indicates a change of heart? Fortunately, there is room for ALL the members of the zoo board and its foundation board to join up—room even for the zoo CEO, Dr. Joel Parrott, to sign on and help save the Park–because we have always run a completely transparent campaign.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

The Knowland Park dumps, and the Alice in Wonderland world of zoo assurances: Where is the ‘stewardship’?

By Ruth on July 9, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Personal Journals, Uncategorized

Zoo debris dumped in Knowland Park

During hearings on the zoo’s expansion development project, Friends of Knowland Park and other environmental groups repeatedly raised the issue of lack of proper stewardship of Knowland Park, and lack of city oversight of the zoo’s management of Park resources. Despite the fact that the zoo is paid by the city to be stewards over the entirety of Knowland Park, it has never really even acknowledged the Park as a Park.

In addition to raising the issue of inadequate monitoring and control of invasive plant species in the Park, the Friends submitted color photos and Google Earth images showing multiple dump sites in the Park, including manure dumping near the site identified for the proposed interpretive center building and restaurant. In its response, the zoo denied dumping manure at all and did not even address the manure dumping at the interpretive center site, focusing instead on a composting area near the veterinary hospital site. However, the manure pile at the former site was mysteriously removed sometime during the weeks immediately following this meeting. Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }

Getting the public to pay for big Zoo Development in Knowland Park – Measure G becomes Measure G(otcha)

By Jim on May 14, 2012 in Oakland Politics

Text of Measure G from the League of Women Voters website: http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/03/05/ca/alm/meas/G/

If you’ve been following the big Oakland Zoo development proposed for the highlands of Knowland Park, then you’ve heard that one of the problems is the sheer cost of it.

But that’s okay, some say, because it will “pump millions into the economy” as Bay Area media outlets reported last summer. However, a closer look suggests that a respectable segment of the millions needed to build the Zoo’s theme park will be pumped directly from the front and back pockets of East Bay residents (See blog “It’s Your Zoo – You’re Paying (and Paying and Paying) for It – May 11, 2012).

Continue Reading →

Comments { 0 }