I think the most frustrating time occurred in 1959 when the jurisdiction of the zoo changed. At that, previous to ’59, the zoo was operated by semi autonomous park board, a board of public-spirited citizens appointed by the mayor with the approval of the board of supervisors of the city. It was a hybrid organization in terms of they had to receive their funds from the board of supervisors, and which were sometimes reluctant to provide the funds. But the expenditure of these funds was under the administrative responsibility of the appointed parks board. And this is where the park department administrator, Ed Lyons, did a masterful job. He was very fond of the zoo and he was very generous in working hard to see that we got an reasonable amount of the budget. In 1959, a new charter was established, city charter, and the former structure where the zoo was administratively operated by a semi-autonomous board, was abandoned, was abolished. And the jurisdiction of the park department, park’s ramification department under which the zoo operated, as a division, was moved over as a department directly under the mayor.
