Here are seven things you need to know about the proposed Zooceanarium contract:
1. The term is five years.
2. The city of Jackson will provide an annual subsidy of $1.2 million. It provided $890,000 a year to the defunct Jackson Zoological Society. Zooceanarium can use up to $300,000 during the term of the contract to purchase new animals.
3. Zooceanarium can buy, sell, and trade animals without the City Council's consent. The Lumumba Administration removed a provision requiring Zooceanarium to follow AZA guidelines in buying or selling animals. Mr. Davis is an animal broker.
4. Zooceanrium must follow all state, federal, and local laws in caring for zoo animals. The Lumumba Administration removed a provision that would have required the company to follow AZA guidelines.
5. A plan for operating the zoo must be submitted to the city within six months after the signing of the contract. Wasn't that required in the RFP process?
6. Zooceanarium does not have to seek AZA accreditation.
7. City will charge flat rate of $6,400 for water and sewer services.
The proposed Zooceanarium contract surprised a few members of the Jackson City Council. Surprise. WLBT reported on December 14:
A review of a draft copy of the city’s proposed contract with ZoOceanarium Group shows that a zoo management plan won’t be drawn up until after the contract is in place, and that the firm would not have to follow AZA guidelines in caring for animals.A copy of the contract was recently obtained by WLBT, days after the city council first had a chance to review the agreement.
The proposal has raised questions among council members, including why provisions requiring the group to obtain accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums were scratched.
Other provisions scratched from the proposed agreement would have required ZoOceanarium to follow AZA regulations when caring, acquiring or disposing of animals.
Instead, ZoOceanarium would only be required to care for zoo animals in “accordance with all federal, state and local laws and regulations, and in accordance with the zoo plan.”
“To totally take it out is a worry to me,” Ward Seven Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay said at a recent council meeting. “If they’re doing what they say they’re going to do, to bring the zoo up to certain standards and to bring the animal collection up to a higher level, that would automatically lend itself to AZA accreditation.”
Accreditation shows that zoos are meeting certain standards in animal care and best practices. AZA accreditation also gives organizations the ability to participate in its Species Survival Program, which could bring new animals to the park.
ZoOceanarium Managing Partner Chris Davis told the council at a meeting on December 10 that he would be not be opposed to provisions requiring the firm to take “reasonable efforts” to obtain zoo accreditation as part of the contract.
The contract would be for five years.
While not having to meet AZA requirements, the contract mandates that all acquisitions, sales or dispositions of animals “be made in strict accordance with (a) applicable federal, state or local laws, regulations and policies, and (b) existing and any adopted acquisition and disposition policies approved by the city subsequent to the execution of (the) agreement.”
The Lumumba administration presented a copy of the draft agreement at a special council meeting recently.
The draft is a culmination of nearly two years of negotiations between the city and ZoOceanarium, the firm it picked to take over management of the Jackson Zoological Park in early 2019.
Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote said the contract raises more questions than it answers. He is especially concerned that ZoOceanarium is not required to present a management plan for the park until six months after the contract is approved.
Paragraph 5.02 states that the plan “is to be submitted by ZoOceanarium to the governing authorities, in the care of the city clerk, within six months of the execution of this agreement by all parties, for review and approval by the city council.”. Rest of article.
41 comments:
Without knowing more, I’m curious to learn how a 5 year contract will be enforceable since the term extends beyond the term of the current city council.
Lots of palm greasing going on here, or as they say in the Middle East - baksheesh.
Eighteen months from now there won't be a single animal at the Jackson zoo.
Does any other organization in Jackson get flat rate billing for water?
"A plan for operating the zoo must be submitted to the city within six months after the signing of the contract." After? What business can give a plan after signing? I'd think they'd want an idea of what to expect before agreeing to payouts and such. For all we know we may begetting a new Club opened.
There's money to be made in them animals!
Buy low sell high. Whoopee!
Got me a gold mine in them animal trade under the title ZOO.
Every major contract Jackson gets involved in ends badly.
Is this an American company?
Its not as if there is a plan B waiting in the wings.
Is the $6,400 flat rate for water/sewer per-month, or per-year?
Strikes me as penny wise pound foolish. Or in this case penny foolish pound foolish.
The City cannot afford to repair the boarded windows of Union Station but can continue to throw money at a damn Zoo?
Since every man, woman and child in Jacktown is contributing $7.50 per year, each should get at least one”free” pass each year.
I wonder how many laws this contract and this bid process break.
Thumbs up on copying the new "style" of the state's "newspaper."
2:02 pm
You are exactly right.
What business can give a plan after signing?
One negotiating with a desperate Mayor.
so...they can put a coat of paint on everything, not provide care beyond a bare minimum to keep animals alive, and then sell enough animals so that it runs at a profit. who cares if there’s only 25/30 animals and two staff to run that part..
it’s all pride and arrogance at this point. and the animals that aren’t sold will suffer.
8th thing you need to know, nobody gives a fuck
"Is the $6,400 flat rate for water/sewer per-month, or per-year?
December 28, 2020 at 3:22 PM"
that may depend on the city's 'billing system' since the morons can't even send a water bill with any consistency or accuracy.
The city doesn't have a bargaining position. ZoOceanarium was the only firm to respond to the city's RFP for a zoo operator. There's no competition for the contract to manage the zoo. The city's back is against the wall, it has no options other than to accept a sketchy, more expensive offer from this outfit - whose only U.S. operation is an aquarium in St. Louis. The city doesn't have a Plan B as a previous commenter asked about, other than to get out of the zoo business, which would be a huge defeat for the mayor.
City got three bids, actually. Zooceanarium, Jackson Zoological Society, and a former employee.
Support for JZS had pretty much dried up and the Director ran it into the ground. Having said that, even though it submitted a credible proposal, the Mayor had no interest in signing anything with the Society. Once the vote was taken to move, the Mayor refused to even speak to the Director or Society. Period. That was when he decided to get another company but frankly, there are no other companies to manage zoos in the United States. It has been nothing but downhill ever since.
I personally don’t care what the city does with their money. I won’t be taking my family to that part of town so they won’t be getting my business.
To say that there 'is no other option', and that ZoOceanarium is the only choice is just wrong.
There is a much better option - close the zoo. Give the animals to another zoo, if any will take them at their age and condition. Get out of the 'zoo business'; quit spending money to maintain something the city cannot afford.
Then take care of the business of the city - like complying witht the EPA consent decree, fix the decaying sewer lines. Then pave the streets. And hire some more police. Once those things are done, then decide what to do with the fifteen cents, or maybe a quarter, you have left in the city's budget for discretionary issues ------- like a zoo.
Golly-gee fellows !
This is swell.
We can visit the zoo again, and then go to Westland Plaza !
But I heard Ward tell Mom we have to let Beaver and Eddie Haskell go with us.
As usual, Mom said . . . just don't be too hard on the Beaver tonight.
For this money, every police officer could gave gotten a $4,000 raise. My city is stuck on stupid. A shitty zoo, in a shitty part of town, that nobody cares about, or goes to. SMDH.
Of course they give the new operator significantly more operating funds than the old operator.
I continue to pray for the animals at the zoo.
Am I the only one who sees a problem with putting an animal broker in charge of a failed zoo on a five- year contract, with complete discretion to by and sell animals, and a $300k annual budget to purchase animals?
I wish they would sell every animal there. IMO they would be better cared for somewhere else.
A contract that will not be drawn up until after the contract is in place. Hold on...lemee read that again.
Do state wildlife laws not prohibit the sale of certain animals intra or interstate? If the man is an 'animal broker', does this tell us his primary objective will be selling off the animals? And to whom? If they're 'sold' to other zoos, that could be a good thing (for the animals and the defunct zoo here). Once the animals are all gone, what in the name of Knob's Junction could be done with this property? Or who cares, as long as the animals are safe somewhere else and this nightmare is off the books.
Close the damn zoo and let Jacktown's beloved homeless live there. No modifications required. Win/win.
Welcome to the US in 2036. Democrats run things liberally. Leftists turn what they run into third world status. As the power of the left increases, so does their power to destroy.
Sadly, the incompetence of Jackson is simply a template of what is happening across this country.
America, it was good while it lasted.
Close the GD Zoo!
It might help attendance if the city would provide armed police escorts into and out of the zoo shooting zone.
This is "our' zoo.
Y'all have to sign the contract before you can read it. That's the Pelosi/Obama rule (ACA-101).
To use Orwell's term "doublethink," the Mayor will then campaign on the fact that he "saved the Zoo."
Would that be doublethink or doublespeak?
"As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April..."
Orwell, George, 1984.
Perhaps the Mayor can issue a "categorical pledge" that the Zoo will continue to function with predictions that it will become great...
For all the years that the Jackson Zoological Society ran the zoo, did they have AZA accreditation?
To be honest, only the remaining animals out there give a shit about what happens to that facility.
Please remove the animals and use the money to fill pot holes and repave Jackson streets.
Let me get this straight. To be a contractor in Jackson you have to be a minority. They have floated the idea of a commuter tax for people who work in Jackson but live where it’s safe, but they are rolling out the red carpet for a foreign company to run the defunct zoo? Nothing at all shady about this deal. Chuckie is getting his palms greased and I’ll bet the farm on it. It’s all about the minorities and keeping it local, till it ain’t.
"Chuckie is getting his palms greased"
But of course.
That's why this lil' emperor wanted the job.
Lil'guy still refuses to acknowledge he's actually a member of the White Taliaferro family. But then again, his Daddy did the same.
Post a Comment