Why the Zoo just proved the case for charging admission

We have enough problems in St. Louis without stooping to use my ideas to fix them. But in the case of something called Proposition Z on the county’s November ballot, the Saint Louis Zoo has ignored that truism. (More on that later.)

First things first. Voters in the county will be asked November 6 to approve Proposition Z, a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax to help operate a satellite facility of our beloved Zoo. The additional $25 million in revenue would help fund a new (and surely worthwhile) conservation breeding campus on 425 acres in North County.

There’s so little public information available about this project—even now, just two months before it will appear on the ballot—that we can only speculate about the details. At press time, the Zoo hadn’t even launched a website promoting the measure. I don’t think that’s a result of poor planning.

The Zoo is unquestionably our town’s most revered institution. It’s rightfully viewed as an unparalleled civic treasure, and it receives unconditional love from people all over the region. So I think the Zoo is counting on Prop Z to pass, because it’s “Z as in Zoo,” and what the Zoo says is good for the Zoo must certainly be good for St. Louis. The details are just details. The smart strategy is to make this a referendum on how much we love the Zoo, bolstered by the mainstream media adulation that’s sure to follow.

I will vote no on this proposition but without any desire to lead the charge against it, because it’s hard to imagine the measure’s not passing by a healthy margin. If it did, it would represent quintessentially bad governance—something St. Louis practices with regularity.

That bad governance spans four issues:

1. The use of regressive and job-costing sales taxes.

2. Increased taxpayer support for a zoo that is sufficiently well off to forgo tens of millions in annual admission revenues—from people living outside the city and county—because it arrogantly clings to a 20th-century tourism model in the 21st century.

3. A terribly squandered opportunity to promote regionalism by involving the people of St. Charles County—who happen to outnumber the population of the city—in support of a zoo that is as dear to them as it is to everyone else in the region.

4. An unfortunate departure from the central structure of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District, one of St. Louis’ best and most underrated government initiatives. Through the ZMD, taxpayers provide long-term support to five important cultural institutions, of which the Zoo is just one (albeit by far the largest).

The first point is a pretty simple one. Sales taxes are already too high in St. Louis County (more than 10 percent in some jurisdictions). Viewed through a conservative economic prism, a further increase can only hurt commerce (and cost jobs) by putting county businesses at a further competitive disadvantage to St. Charles County and other surrounding jurisdictions. Through a liberal economics prism, sales taxes are the most regressive kind collected by the county, disproportionately hurting lower- and middle-class residents.

But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that St. Louis County could withstand another sales tax increase, there’s a larger point that transcends politics: The county is facing a budget crisis, and it can’t adequately fund such basic government functions as staffing the county jail and supporting the parks, the Health Department, and other vital agencies.

Give scarce sales tax dollars to the Zoo?

The second point—Zoo admission policies—returns me to the first sentence of this diatribe. As those who follow my work know, I have been screaming for nearly a decade about how stupid it is for the Zoo to allow free admission to tourists (and other non-residents of the ZMD tax district) at a time when admission revenues have become a major source of income for virtually every other zoo in the nation.

My point has been consistently clear: The Zoo should always provide free admission to residents from the city and county, who support it with their hard-earned tax dollars, but not to people who don’t support it. Why? Because in 1970, when the ZMD was created, zoo admission fees were chump change around the nation. Today, they are a major sustaining source of revenue for cities large and small, a way to bring in millions from outside one’s region.

Conservative estimates indicate that our world-class Zoo could easily charge admission rates that would generate $80–$100 per visit from a family of four for those who enjoy this jewel but don’t support it with their tax dollars. My corollary proposal has been to expand the ZMD to include the surrounding counties that are as much a part of St. Louis as St. Louis itself (especially when the Cardinals win a World Series).

Well, guess who’s just adopted the principle that the people who support the Zoo should be entitled to free admission but that all others should pay to enter. Why, it’s the Saint Louis Zoo, which has announced that admission to the new campus would be free to county residents.

Isn’t that rich? What happened to all our valiant principles, not to mention the supposed logistical issues of charging admission that have made Zoo officials so adamant about leaving millions of tourist dollars outside its gates? If this new satellite should be supported because we love our free Zoo, then why shouldn’t it be free as well?

To be fair, there is precedent: The main zoo already charges for parking, the Children’s Zoo, the train, the carousel, and so forth. But that’s what’s even more outrageous about the “free admission” policy: Not only is this not a free zoo, but also the same city and county residents who support it with more than $20 million in hard-earned property-tax dollars get zero consideration when it comes to those extras. By the way, that disproportionately hurts families with young children, who are most in need of such services.

If the Zoo took the same approach that it is proposing for the satellite facility, there would be no need for the sales tax at all. The fee structure would follow a simple principle: Those who support the Zoo (as taxpayers or members) get in free; everyone else pays.

That brings us to the corollary idea of involving St. Charles County. In an op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, County Executive Steve Ehlmann revealed that the county had offered 450 acres of free land and “the $800,000 the county annually receives back from the Regional Parks Tax.”

A Zoo spokesman told me, “The St. Charles offer didn’t properly address the Zoo’s priorities with respect to its infrastructure needs and its animal conservation initiatives.”

I have no business getting into that argument. But I will say this: Good for Ehlmann, a conservative Republican who proudly disagrees with me on most things. Regionalism can’t be a one-way street. At least he made an effort to get his county involved in supporting the Zoo. Had he been able to do so, perhaps the $7.1 million that two generous donors gave the Zoo to purchase the land could have met some other need.

I’ll stand by my argument that people in surrounding counties should join the ZMD, join the Zoo, or pay admission. I realize that option wasn’t being offered (nor would it have been accepted by Zoo officials). But squandering this opportunity to bring St. Charles County under the Zoo’s tent of supporters is troubling.

Finally, there’s the ZMD piece of this story, probably the wonkiest. The bottom line is simple: The ZMD represents a wonderful concept, something we should take pride in, as we do our Zoo. Not many communities support their cultural institutions as generously and reliably as we do through the ZMD. We should continue to do so forever. But we should support the ZMD as a district, without regard to the popularity of any particular institution.

In fairness, the Zoo is not the first ZMD institution to try raising tax dollars independently; others have attempted the same strategy, without success, on multiple occasions. But that doesn’t make it right. When it comes to public funding, the ZMD should act as a single entity.

Conversely, when it comes to serving the public, what St. Louis needs from all of the ZMD members is leadership, vision, and a regionalism that extends beyond their individual noble missions.

Starting with the Zoo.