And they were the ones putting the most pressure on the zoo, saying, “This isn’t what we do. We don’t fund zoos. You gotta fix this.” Fortunately for us, there was a major shift in state government, where power transferred from the state legislature to local governments. Prior to the early 1970s in South Carolina, local governments, mayors had virtually no power. It all rested in the state legislature. Again, that, here we are in 2023, but I’m telling you this goes back to Reconstruction after the Civil War. So they changed that form of government and the term that they used was home rule. We’re gonna now take this responsibility and shift it to the people who live and work in the community.
