This is the first of a two-part feature dedicated to the restoration of the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. In each article, staff writer Gigi Thao will explore the site’s reconstruction, provided for by taxpayer dollars, as well as the ramifications of the procedure.
With almost a hundred years of history behind it and no critical changes since, the Fresno Chaffee Zoo is finally able to expand from its 18-acre plot to about 39. When Measure Z was passed, the zoo received the funds necessary for such an expansion.
Legislation enables zoo development
Measure Z, a tax-initiative bill that was passed in 2004, allows the zoo to gain one-tenth of a cent every time someone in Fresno County spends money. According to Chaffee’s Director of Education, Adrienne Castro, this helped set up goals for the zoo, one of which being the need to bring in larger exhibits — such as lions and rhinos.
“Part of our expansion was the Measure Z, a tax initiative bill that also required our zoo to bring back certain animals and earn about 100 million dollars,” Castro said. “To have that tax measure and the community support us is huge. The zoo prior to Measure Z was kind of in a lot of trouble.”
The bill was also approved because the zoo changed from city-run to a privately owned, non-profit organization. Interestingly, the reason the bill was even created was because a young girl, after visiting Chaffee, sent a single dollar and a letter regarding the state of the zoo to Fresno City Council. This small act of compassion sparked a massive movement towards future change.
“We went from being a city-run zoo to a privately-owned zoo and at that time we had the opportunity to do a master-plan; part of it was to expand our size to double, moving east of here, closer to Golden State Blvd.,” Castro said. “The fact that our attendance last year was over 500,000 was record-breaking for us, and we hadn’t even built anything different.”
Since then, the zoo has accrued about $40 million. Castro and many others had hoped for more, but with the world-wide recession, Chaffee has had to work around the economy. Despite this, the zoo is trying to put the money it recieves to good use. With every plan that is put into motion, zoo directors spend a year developing the blueprints. After this, another year is used to approve the project.
“We try to be very good stewards with the money, so whatever we build there is a lot of thought put into it, so we truly do good with the money …” Castro said. “We want to be responsible with our funds.”
As a child, math teacher Michael Fenton rarely went to Chaffee. Nowadays, due to his son Caleb’s love of the zoo, the Fenton family normally visits once a month. Because of this, the expansion is something that he definitely looks forward to, not only as an attraction for himself, but for the entire community.
“I used to go to the zoo once in like six years; now I go once a month because my son likes going,” Fenton said. “I’m excited because we already have a good zoo and it’s getting better and in my hometown. By golly, I’m as excited as can be!”
Administrators face obstacles during construction
The expansion has not been easy-going, as the Chaffee facility has faced several different impediments while attempting to get the project passed.
“Some of the challenges was going through the environmental impact because it could have taken years. If we try to build anything different, we still have to abide by any California laws,” Castro said. “On the other hand, there were some opponents to the expansion like the friends of the Roeding family, however the Roeding family has not lived here for the last 80 years. But we got a lot of support, so any opponents to the expansion was minimal.”
Some concerns included protests about the construction hurting the amount of trees in the area. However, Castro says the zoo also tries to work with keeping the environment as green as possible.
“Part of the EIR [Environmental Impact Report] is that we’ll keep as many trees as we can,” Castro said. “So some ways to abide by that was that if we cut down one tree, we would put up five other ones. Having lots of trees is important to us too, so we’re going to work through it.”
For the expansion, compromising when it came to the EIR was the most difficult part. Though the process has taken about four years to approve, things have gone on smoothly, for the most of it,.
“I believe that, for the most part, the EIR was the biggest hurdle and we accomplished it,” Castro said. “There is a lawsuit against it however, but everything is going really well with that. I don’t see any big complications in the future.”
Development to aid city-wide restoration
According to Castro, the need for expansion was not only necessary because of Measure Z, but also because the zoo’s own structure needed more support.
“Because the zoo is so old, the infrastructure was really failing on a lot of levels,” Castro said. “The zoo needed a lot of work, the zoo also needed some upgrades and [after the expansion] it would be a smaller size zoo, but it will be a good size.”
Trying to work as quickly as possible, Castro says she hopes renovations will be finished by 2014.
“We’re hoping everything will be built by 2014,” Castro said. “It’s an aggressive timeline, but we hope to be close to being done with it. We try to have meetings monthly and it takes a year to design an area, so we’ve started a few months ago.”
Though this expansion seems to aid only the zoo, as a whole, it will aid the entire community, such as the downtown area, says Castro.
“I think that expanding the zoo will help Fresno on multiple levels. Not only is it for the zoo, it helps our community,” Castro said. “It could help restore the entire downtown area. Right now we are a community zoo, however when we expand there’s an opportunity to be one of the best zoos in the world and a tourist stop.”
For other community events, read the March 6 article, Kids Day employs Fresno to assist Children’s Hospital or the March 2 article, FC wins 2nd consecutive Valley Championship (VIDEO).
