Nature center safe, but zoo still faces staffing cuts
The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors has tentatively decided not to close down the Oak Grove Nature Center in Stockton as originally planned, but to keep it open and staffed with volunteer docents instead of paid employees.
However, cuts still loom in Micke Grove Zoo’s future. Four part-time animal care specialist positions are slated to be terminated under direction for the county budget approved by the board on Wednesday — two immediately and two on Aug. 31.
The changes shouldn’t have any impact on zoo guests, said Marcia Cunningham, who heads the county’s Department of General Services.
“The docents’ works and dedication allows for zoo staff hours currently being spent at the (Oak Grove) Nature Center to be redirected back to the Micke Grove Zoo,” she said. “The additional 1,038 hours can be spent on animal care at the zoo.”
Zoo hours are not expected to change, she added.
Zoo staff members were concerned that the staff cuts could have a negative effect on the animals that live at Micke Grove.
“It is very likely that the additional workload will have a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of existing animal care staff. There is also a high likelihood that their safety will also be compromised,” zoo curator Avanti Mallapur said. “Animal care staff ’s ability to closely monitor the health and welfare of our animal residents will diminish because they will have to work in more animal areas than they normally do.”
If the county had reached out to the Micke Grove Zoological Society when they began weighing budget cuts, the group may have been able to raise the funds to keep at least some of the parttime staff members, she said.
Woodbridge Wilderness Area, which was also up for discussion, should not be affected by the new budget, Cunningham said.
San Joaquin County Parks Commissioner Mary Fuhs was relieved that the nature center would remain open for another year and said that the docents already have plenty of experience in operating the nature center.
“The potential of Oak Grove Nature Center is huge and it is so under-utilized,” Fuhs said. “It is my hope the county secures the classroom at the nature center and uses it as another rental facility to encourage more use and possibly justify a full time staff person at the facility. To have it open daily should not be a pipe dream, the public deserves it opened.”
Cunningham cited recommendations in a recently completed consultant’s report on the parks for the decision at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. She said the county’s goal is for the parks system to become self-sustainable, the Stockton Record reported.
The consultant’s report will be discussed at a meeting in July.
“I would say that this would be the low point,” Cunningham said at Tuesday’s meeting. “Hopefully, the rebound can happen down the road.”
At this time, the county sees no potential revenue sources to keep the zoo fully staffed, Cunningham told the NewsSentinel on Wednesday.
Staffing Oak Grove Nature Center with volunteers is one way the county is seeking to cut costs.
The proposed Parks and Recreation budget of $5,323,664 discussed at Tuesday’s meeting represented a 10 percent decrease from the $5.9 million allotted to the department in 2017-18, the Record reported.
Revenue brought in by the parks has been stagnant in recent years. The parks generated $3.1 million in revenue in 2014-15. To have kept pace with inflation in the current year, the parks should have generated $3.3 million. Instead, the revenue projection is, once again, for $3.1 million.
The elimination of three vacant park positions and some part-time positions — as well as planned reduced spending on several other items, including consulting costs, janitorial supplies and advertising — account for the proposed budget cut, according to the county.
Micke Grove Zoo’s operating cost was a shade over $1 million in 2016-17, the last full year for which there is a final spending total, the Record reported. Ken Nieland, president of the Micke Grove Zoological Society and a former employee of the San Joaquin County Parks and Recreation Department from 1979 to 2012, said he has watched the county’s support for facilities such as the nature center and the zoo decline over the past few decades.
“It’s caused projects to go uncompleted at the zoo,” he said. “Cages are left empty at the zoo and it’s sad, because at one time the zoo worked very hard to become one of the best small zoos in the country.”
The county seems not only unwilling or unable to fund improvements that would keep the zoo at the forefront, Nieland said, but has also declined to fund important, reasonable upgrades. As a result, zoo guests aren’t seeing the zoo at its best.
“The county seems to be focused on cost-cutting with little-to-no consideration of how those cuts are going to impact operations at the parks and zoo,” he said.
The San Joaquin County Parks Commissioners who were appointed by the board of supervisors to “be their eyes and ears” had not been consulted in the decision to cut the zoo’s part-time animal care staff, according to Nieland.
Instead, he said, the decision appeared to have been made by the county’s parks director and general services director, who have little to no experience in zoo animal care.
Although Oak Grove Nature Center will remain open for another year, Fuhs voiced concerns that the county still plans to eliminate part-time staff at facilities such as Micke Grove Zoo in Lodi, saying that the facilities will begin to deteriorate if left understaffed for too long.
“Park personnel already pulling a 40-hour work week will be overworked, causing health and safety issues. Reducing staff can increase ineffectiveness,” she said. “Another concern is staff leaving due to work conditions, our turnover greatly affects the park system. We have had so many longtime personnel leave or retire that it has been difficult.”
Anyone who would like to become a volunteer with the county is welcome to email
Cunningham said.
Anyone who wants to help support Micke Grove Zoo should contact the zoological society, Mallapur said.