I don’t know that that’s a reflection upon the Columbus Zoo, as much as it might be a reflection upon a bad idea because the idea obviously didn’t fly. They ran it up the flag pole but nobody saluted it. And so, the fact that it failed probably wasn’t based… Read More
Still 1/8 of a cent. But in theory, the amount of money being spent for sales in Oklahoma in theory grows. And so, that 1/8 of a cent now becomes a larger amount of money due to the fact it’s an 1/8 of a cent based upon a larger sales. Read More
I’m just asking maybe a technical, I’m just curious, 1/8 of a cent?… Read More
Is that money still coming into the zoo today?… Read More
The money still comes into the zoo today. There’s no sunset clause on the sales tax agreement. The only way that it could be removed is for another referendum to remove it. So but it’s the same amount of money coming in. It’s still the 1/8. Read More
That is correct. We had a funding base which was very unique for any zoo because we could for the foreseeable future, we had and you understand it, that we were making money through the tax faster than we could spend it. So, when we looked at, I actually formulated… Read More
You’d mentioned some exhibits and how they were funded and how difficult was it to raise funds or wasn’t it difficult for the cat forest lion overlook?… Read More
Funding for, I think almost virtually every exhibit that I was involved in was funded primarily out of operational dollars. Certainly the renovation of the birdhouse at St. Louis, we didn’t build too many new bird exhibits in St. Louis, just the renovation is probably the main endeavor. Oklahoma City. Read More
Now what’s happened, racetrack’s still there but now in the state of Oklahoma, you’ve got all this gambling. And so, it’s gambling over there now. De Barlow’s no longer on the track, it’s gone through two or three owners but that’s how we ended up with it. And it was… Read More
Oh, there was a couple other buildings and some exhibit and some holding spaces. Incubation room was over there and this possibility of this racetrack came up. And again when I got there, this was largely down the path. And a guy named Ed De Barlow came in, he wanted… Read More
A new animal hospital. New curator-keeper spaces was created over there. So, it really from a capital trade off, it really benefited. There was a contract that the zoo got, I’m gonna say $250,000 a year for the first 25 years and then 500,000 after that. The reason for the… Read More
(laughter) We were landowner for a race track. It came about, we had a trustee, a trust member who liked to dabble with real estate. And we had this huge piece of property on the other side of the road from the zoo. And it was owned by the society… Read More
What else was over there?… Read More
What was the you’re in the racetrack business?… Read More
Can you tell me something about how did the racetrack come about?… Read More
How did it help or hurt the zoo?… Read More
But when the cat exhibit had to go on there, well then the train had to go. It wasn’t a question anymore. And another thing that took up, I’m assuming took up some space. Read More
So, it became a point like this isn’t economical anymore. Read More
Should we keep it just for the sake of history?… Read More
For space. In order to do Great Escape, we had to realign the tracks, which we did. We kept the train. But when we did the cat exhibit, it sat right in the cat exhibit, went right across where the train was. So, then the train had to go. The… Read More