The city is sticking with its story on the Reid Park Zoo’s takeover of 3.5 acres of treasured parkland.
The voters approved it (wrong).
There was a public process (sort of).
Therefore, we’re moving forward (whoa there).
What city officials don’t seem to grasp yet is that the expansion of the zoo into a beloved area of the park — the south duck pond and Barnum Hill — has blown up into a full-on Tucson development controversy. It’s not going away just because city officials make confident assertions and stand firm.
February was the month that work was to have begun on the new zoo exhibit, but it has been delayed until mid-March. That makes this a good time for Mayor Regina Romero and the City Council to do the right thing and start looking for a way to spare the public places people love while accommodating, as much as possible, the zoo’s expansion elsewhere.
I sat in Tuesday on an online meeting between a group of people protesting the zoo’s takeover of this area and officials such as City Manager Mike Ortega, Council Member Steve Kozachik and Council Member Richard Fimbres. It was basically the city officials giving a hearing to angry constituents.
Before the meeting, Ortega had written a memo answering the objections by people who have formed a group called Save the Heart of Reid Park. They have held protests at the park, the latest one Jan. 24, and have been telling park users about the plan to make this beloved part of the park into fenced-in tiger habitat for the zoo.
In his memo, Ortega noted that in 2017 voters approved a one-tenth of 1% sales tax increase for 10 years to fund the zoo. That’s true, we narrowly approved the tax, by 633 votes, less than 1 percent of the votes cast.
“Since the voters’ approval of Propositions 202 and 203, work has moved forward to carry out the voters’ will and implement the purposes of those Acts,” he wrote.
This assertion, that the voters approved this zoo expansion, has been a consistent claim made by city officials.
But it’s not true, and they should stop saying it.
The text of the ballot language said the tax is “to fund capital improvements, operations, and maintenance at the Gene Reid Park Zoo.” It did not mention expansions.
The more detailed description of the initiative in that year’s voter information pamphlet does mention expansion. It said:
“The Zoo has a well-developed, bold master plan with larger, improved habitats: to bring new species to Tucson for visitors to learn about, and be amazed by. This includes a pygmy hippo habitat, a new larger tiger habitat, and a tropical discovery center featuring reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and fish.”
But this reference to “larger habitats” didn’t make it clear to voters that voting “yes” would mean losing that Tucson rarity: A hill covered in mature trees overlooking a pond teeming with waterfowl.
Now, it’s true that the zoo held a public process after the tax was narrowly approved and decided in 2018 on a westward expansion. City officials assert that process was transparent and inclusive and should be accepted as such.
But the proof that it was not adequate is right there in the movement against the expansion into this area. Until November, few if any users of the south duck pond and Barnum Hill knew that it was to be taken over. Otherwise, this rebellion against the plan wouldn’t have happened.
“What you’re calling a public process doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” said Lauren McElroy, co-chair of Save The Heart of Reid Park, in Tuesday’s meeting. “Presentations given were directed to people associated with the zoo. There were no town halls or public hearings about changing land use in Reid Park.”
Her co-chair, Manon Getsi, noted “I’m feeling a little gaslit.”
“It shouldn’t be on me to work for free to get the word out, and that’s basically what’s happened,” Getsi said. “In the last two months, I’ve done a better job, with five or six other people, letting people know what’s going on in Reid Park than the city has done over the last three years.”
You know how they’ve done it? By talking to and handing leaflets to people who use this part of the park.
Ortega’s position, as the meeting Tuesday concluded, was that he would be happy to work with opponents of the expansion on establishing amenities similar to the pond and hill elsewhere in the park. There is an area northeast of the north pond where a similar pond and hill could be built.
When I spoke to him about the controversy, council member Paul Cunningham also pointed to this as a possible settlement.
"When it comes to the lower pond, the water stream and the hill, I will not support a net loss of those amenities to our community," he said. "If we can't save the pond and the hill, we will replace the pond and the hill."
That sounds like a sensible compromise, but it still means sacrificing a magical place for a generation.
It would mean starting over with newly planted trees in a new place to replace the ones that took decades to grow on Barnum Hill and around the south pond.
Zoo officials have said that the Aleppo pines on the hill show signs of beetle infestation, but others who have looked at them question that conclusion.
Jared McKinley, owner of the nearby Spadefoot Nursery, walked the area looking at the trees and concluded, “They’re some of the healthiest old pines in Tucson.”
A real compromise would not be to try to re-create the existing oasis elsewhere.
A real compromise is to stop the takeover of the south duck pond and Barnum Hill but accept an expansion elsewhere in the park.
Either way, more public property goes behind the zoo’s fences, which is enough sacrifice. The public shouldn’t have to give up any of its park space, but especially not this spot.
It’s not too late to correct this mistake.
