Issue 14

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NEWS: Who’s playing at Bunch o’ Bands » PAGE 2

OPINION: When college letters misspell your name » PAGE 15

ISSUE FOURTEEN april 14, 2008 shawnee mission east prairie village, ks

SERIES: Alcohol use at East, part I » PAGE 14-15

Kansas City Zoo to reduce spending and close exhibits due to citywide budget cuts BY

not made of

MONEY

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bernadettemeyers, taylortwibell

The zoo is silent. No sound of a lion’s roar, no cackling hyena, no squawking parakeets. Or at least, that could be the future of the zoo if management doesn’t find a way to increase funds. Unfortunately for the animals, a $600,000 cut from the annual management contract initiated by the city council in March has threatened the animals in the Kansas City Zoo and left the management struggling to come up with a way to make up the money. One of the reasons for this is that there is no sales tax that supports the zoo. So without the full support of the community, the zoo has no income, unlike other zoos such as the St. Louis Zoo, which receives enough sales tax money to allow free admittance. Mayor Mark Funkhouser was asking at the end of February for a complete cut of the annual $4.6 million city subsidy over two to three years starting at a $2 million dollar decrease. The city usually budgets money for public projects like the zoo, but this year money was relocated to reserve funds for the city. Had the complete budget cut been approved, the zoo would have been forced to close until it could secure other funding. Even without Funkhouser’s suggested budget cut, the zoo is closing exhibits and sending several animals to other zoos in ordeir to direct money towards maintaining the more popular and important exhibits. Despite the rumors, the zoo won’t close this year and zoo director Randy Wisthoff is formulating a plan to present at a zoo board meeting at the end of April. Wisthoff hopes that the biggest change will be raising the entrance price by $1.

» story continued on page 3


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