Intriguingly, a comparison of the number of car thefts and break-ins in Balboa Park with those in New York’s Central Park suggests the best way to eliminate most of the crime in Balboa Park is to eliminate the cars themselves. There are few parking lots in Central Park, and most of its visitors arrive via mass transit of some kind --- bus, subway or taxi. In the first nine months of 1984, just six cars were stolen there --- compared to one hundred stolen in Balboa Park. There were also 594 car break-ins in Balboa Park during the same period. (No equivalent figures for Central Park were available, but grand theft, a category of crime which includes many car break-ins is more prevalent in Balboa Park than in Central Park.

Various consultants hired by the city have long advocated getting rid of cars in the middle of Balboa Park, and the above statistics suggest the possibility that the park could end its chronic congestion and parking problems as well as much of its crime simply by banning automobiles.

Contractor is Trepte Construction Co., builders of the Old Globe Theater after it was destroyed by fire. Architects are Liebhardt, Wesson and Associates and landscape architects are Wimmer, Yamada and Associates. Theater designer is Richard L. Hay, who designed the new Old Globe, and acoustician is Ron McKay of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc.

Hall also announced that individual seats in the new facility may be purchased for $500, including the cost of a dedication plaque and that 250 of the 613 seats already have been dedicated.

The richer people are and the farther away from Balboa Park they live, the more likely they are to tell underprivileged, inner-city people what Balboa Park should be used for. The last phrase of Lori Elder’s letter in the last issue (February7) of the READER, "tell those derelicts to get a job," is cruel.

George W. Marston gave money to victims of mental illness, economic downturns and natural disasters. Rich people in La Jolla and Del Mar take from the government and the poor and give nothing in return.

It’s generally felt by the city and local Balboa Park supporters that replacing the House of Hospitality and the House of Charm is a much wiser course than trying to prop up the troubled buildings continually.

Sacramento - A deputy director of the San Diego Zoo says the institution risks personnel and program cutbacks and admission fee increases if a special voter-approved zoo property tax is wiped off the books by the courts or the Legislature.

Word of that "contingency plan" came in a telephone interview with Richard Binford, the zoo’s deputy director for finances and administration. While zoo officials are trying to interest lawmakers in efforts to preserve the zoo tax, they are already bracing for the loss of roughly $1.5 million a year.

While the fall zoo budget is $45 million, Binford said, "we’ll have to scramble," if the special tax is wiped out as being out of compliance with the 1978-tax-cut Proposition 13.

An appeal to the city to replace the funds had been virtually ruled out.

Educational programs might be affected by the financial loss, he said, and some breeding programs to foster endangered species "might be put on the back burner. We would have to recover part in price increases. We would make some cutbacks in personnel."

Members of the San Diego County legislative delegation, who gathered yesterday for breakfast, were urged to fight to keep the zoo tax. "We’re appealing to members of both house," said San Diego city lobbyist John Witzel. "It’s a lot (of money) to the zoo."

The object of Witzel’s concern is SB 149 by Sen. Milton Marks, R-San Francisco. The bill’s main impact would be to prevent cities from exploiting a so-called loophole in Proposition 13 by a court case to raise their property taxes above the limits set by the 1978 Jarvis-Gann initiative.

The object of the bill is to prevent those localities from imposing tax increases amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, ostensibly to pay for employee pension plans.

The Marks bill would spell out a narrow definition of debt that excludes pensions. It also excludes any extra property taxes to pay for ongoing local government activities --- such as the zoo.

Capt. Winston Yetta, head of the Police Department’s Central Division, said: "Because of its geographical location, the park is very difficult to patrol. We have looked at statistical information that shows us where the problems are located. Those are the areas we are going into."

Uniformed but unarmed "Park Rangers" will patrol Balboa Park’s lush tropical cliffs and canyons if San Diego city and police officials have their way.

Other cities surveyed reported that specialized park units have been traditionally relied upon to hand park responsibilities, some of them since the turn of the century.

The threat of state legislation that would invalidate a special property tax supporting the San Diego Zoo has faded, although the courts still may upset the 50-year-old levy.

But merely providing additional police or park rangers won’t rid the park of crime. Another imperative is for the City Council to enact several security measures recommended in the Balboa Park Master Plan. That plan is still ensnared in City Hall red tape and cannot be adopted before fall. But the council should immediately implement its recommendations to increase area lighting, to eliminate unnecessary side roads that lead to "cruising," and trim or remove dense vegetation that provides cover for lurking criminals.

Justice must be swift and certain. That would make a real difference. It wouldn’t just be window dressing.

Creation of the so-called "arts district" would be financed by increasing the city’s hotel-motel room tax by a penny.

Sen. William Craven, R-Oceanside, won unanimous approval for an amendment to a property-tax-related bill by Sen. Milton Marks, R-San Francisco, that would have eliminated the zoo tax which generates about $1.5 million a year.

Amidst several vintage autos, about 50 curious passers-by and a marching bagpiper, the philanthropic club welcomed the museum to its new home. The building will be renovated with private funds and the museum should open by the end of the year, according to Reid Carroll, president of the museum’s coordination committee and a reporter for KFMB Radio.

The San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park have received their official blueprints for the future, all aimed at making them so attractive people will visit them repeatedly, which will ensure the Zoological Society of San Diego the money it needs to operate the popular attractions.

The new plan, approved unanimously yesterday by the society board, means visitors "will come to a zoo, whether it’s the zoo or Wild Animal Park, that is unique and fresh and brings them the very most-up-to-date approach in the exhibiting of animals and plant species," said society president Sheldon Campbell.

Called the "Diamond Edge" plan because it provides an agenda through the zoo’s 75^th anniversary in 1991, its key goals are to provide a rich educational experience for visitors and improved environments for animals to encourage breeding, especially of endangered species.

All of that takes lots of money, Campbell said, noting the operating budgets for the zoo and park now total nearly $50 million.

He said visitor money from newcomers or repeat visitors is critical to staying in business.

He added that the need for a master plan, the first in the zoo’s 69-year history, arose from success.

"It’s the largest and most successful zoo operation in the world," he said, basing his remarks on extensive travels. Smaller organizations "can fly by the seat of their pants . . . on a month-to-month basis," he said. "But an organization the size of this one requires you to project your plan out further."

Particular emphasis will be placed on the Wild Animal Park in San Pasqual Valley to make it self-supporting by 1987. So far, with the exception of one year, the park has spent more than it has received in revenues and since its opening in 1972 has had to be partially supported by the zoo to the tune of nearly $21 million.

Here’s what’s in store because of the new plan, some of which has been phased in already or will be in the next couple of weeks. Other parts will be built as money is raised to finance extensive new construction projects.

• "Close Encounters" at the Wild Animal Park will begin March 30 and allow visitors a chance to meet the gorillas or elephants individually in their bedrooms or barns. Included in the price of admission for adults and children, "Close Encounters" is an attempt to make the Wild Animal Park more personal for visitors.
• More graphics at the zoo and the park, more films and opportunities to talk with the keepers to find out about their work and the animals.
• More bluegrass music and ballad concerts at the park instead of rock groups that have performed in the past, to draw families to the attractions.
• An end to the $2 concert fee, begun last year, but stopped amid protests from any society members. The $1 parking fee at the park will continue. A proposed parking fee at the zoo is still under study by the city.
• A major change of exhibits at the zoo in which animals will be placed in settings similar to their native environments. Animals of the same region will be mixed together, not separated by species. As a result, the animals will have more room and may behave more as they would in the wild.

Trustees of the Zoological Society of San Diego yesterday approved a five-year strategy plan that will guide operations of the Zoo in Balboa Park and the Wild Animal Park in San Pasqual for the next five years.

The plan is called "Diamond Edge" because it will take the 69-year-old society to its diamond, or 75^th anniversary in 1991. Implementation will begin immediately.

The plan for the first time places an emphasis on plants. In the past, the focus has been on animals and plants have been an afterthought, a Zoo spokesman said.

The plan addresses five key areas: a comprehensive plan to integrate animals, plants and facilities, making the Wild Animal Park self-sustaining; make the zoological organization more responsive to its operating environment; increasing revenues; and improving the visitor experience.

"It is important here to note that the strategic plan did not begin as a reaction to any internal difficulties," said Sheldon Campbell, president of the society. "From the start, it was wholly an initiative on the part of the staff and trustees who during a period of 69 years, have, with the good will of the media and the community, built the largest and most successful zoo operation in history.

"That’s a staggering statement, but it’s true. The very success of the organization created the need for a long-range plan that would perpetuate it."

Campbell said the "Diamond Edge" name was selected because the plans calls for the society to maintain the "edge that our institution has had as far as the zoological world is concerned."

Diamond Edge is the first long-range plan developed for the society and for the first time defines a mission for the two parks. At present, the society’s bylaws define the goals of the parks as conservation, education, recreation and research.

The society, according to the new plan, "is dedicated to increasing understanding and appreciation of all life-forms by exhibiting animals and plants in natural settings and applying its efforts and influence to the conservation of the earth’s wildlife."

The plan recognizes that the Wild Animal Park will continue to be dependent on the Zoo for another two years but should be able to pay its own bills by 1987. Since it opened in 1972, the park has received $20.8 million in subsidies from the Zoo.

Work on the 118-page plan began on March 22, 1984. Before it was completed, it was worked on by 110 employees, trustees and other volunteers. Trustees saw the completed document for the first time on February 23 and approved it, with minor changes in wording at a meeting yesterday.

The nucleus group that prepared the plan, in addition to Campbell, included Charles Bieler, executive director emeritus; Dr. Kurt Benirschke, director of research; Richard Binford, deputy director of finance; and Zoological Society trustee Dallas Clark.

Other members are horticulturist Chuck Coburn; Dr. James Dolan, curator of mammals; Pegi Harvey, director of education; Wild Animal Park general manager Robert McClure; Doug Myers, executive director of the Zoological Society; Jim Oosterhuis, head veterinarian at the park; David Rice, director of architecture; Carole Towne, director of public relations and marketing; society trustee Betty Joe Williams; and Zoo general manager Terry Winnick.

An auto museum in Balboa Park is bound to be a big attraction. The park should have something for all of us, and old cars, as well as airplanes, are important to a large part of the population.

If all else fails to improve a lizard’s love life, try a waterbed.

The plight of the park is something San Diego can and must deal with. Events in other cities show what can happen when lawlessness is allowed to encroach on part of a city. People will avoid the area and soon this abandonment leads to more crime. These who care nothing about the rights of others become more brazen and crime increases. When transients and criminals are tolerated, shameful urban decay has begun.

At a time when our national government is highly critical of many countries where elections are charades, it’s too bad that here in San Diego, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we are busy concocting tricky legal schemes to deny the vote to those who should be entitled to it.

(City Manager Blair’s office) is expected to develop an anti-crime strategy for Balboa Park and Mission Bay Park, including patrols by unsworn personnel.

In this era of higher costs, the museums and the zoo face a bigger fiscal challenge than ever. To meet that challenge and to thrive, they must be responsive to their members. Democracy will inject new vigor into our cultural institutions.

Sadler’s plan suggests creation of "Center City, including Balboa Park, as a cultural center and arts district; appropriate transition to a 21^st century integrated transportation, circulation and parking system; all types of housing to serve Center City, and improvement of the physical environment on downtown streets."

I would like to correct a serious error in your March 13 editorial about the newly planned auto museum in Balboa Park. I do not want to raise the question about whether San Diegans really need an antique auto museum as your article stated (I do have an opinion) but rather to comment on the proposed site of the museum.

In your article you stated " . . . the Conference Building, now used for events only about 38 days a year, seems the perfect place." This number is quite wrong.

The Conference Building is in use nearly 300 days per year by a variety of groups. It has been the home of the San Diego Table Tennis Club for, I believe, 24 years. This club, which has more than 500 members, has been producing nationally ranked players much of this time and sponsors play five nights a week, year-round. One night a week a local tournament is held in the Conference Building.

Tournaments sponsored by the U.S. Table Tennis Association and open to players throughout the United States and the world are also held several times a year.

The building is also the home for an important group consisting of several hundred handicapped San Diegans. Two nights a week for the past two years the handicapped play indoor field hockey.

These people have a great time and certainly know the Conference Building as their home.

The 38 days referred to in your editorial undoubtedly applies to weekend events, such as dart tournaments, dancing, rummage sales, etc. Since the table-tennis group and the handicapped use the building regularly for 260 days per year, The Tribune should have stated more correctly that "since the Conference Building is in use for 298 days per year, and on a regular basis by about 700 people, the Conference Building does not seem to be the appropriate place for the museum."

As a relative newcomer to San Diego, I have been continually impressed with the extraordinary athletic facilities provided by the city for its variety of citizens. To me, this contributes significantly to the "Finest City" image and should not be changed.

I have heard that the Parks and Recreation Board is trying to find usable facilities for the various groups that will be displaced by the potential conversion of the Conference Building to an auto museum. They should be commended. I hope, though, that a new place will be found before the eviction notice comes and that the City Council recognizes that facilities now in use by nearly 1,000 San Diegans have immediate value, neither tourists nor San Diegans will be left out by a delay in setting up the museum.

We hope the Children’s Museum finds a permanent home in Balboa Park or downtown.

The people who have served as trustees of the San Diego Zoological Society loom large in the city’s history.

They erected skyscrapers, courted commerce and industry, shaped public policy, raised millions for charity, nurtured the arts.

Then they were rewarded with what many consider the city’s ultimate plum --- a seat on the zoo board. While older Northeastern cities flaunt prestigious opera and museum societies, San Diego --- young, exuberant and outdoorsy --- loves its zoo.

The volunteer work is demanding. Dinner jackets and evening gowns collect no dust in their closets. Lengthy board meetings supplant quiet evenings at home.

Not that the job lacks perks. In their official capacities, some have met the Duke of Edinburgh, petted a giant panda at a Chinese game reserve, drank free champagne on international flights.

Who are these people that set policy for a 100,000 plus member society and allocate pieces of a $50 million pie?

Their average age is 63. Most are millionaires.

The Tribune, in an effort to shed light on the inner workings of a very private society, requested and received interviews with 11 of the board’s 12 voting members, as well as several trustees emeriti.

The Zoological Society of San Diego was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1916 by founder Harry M. Wegeforth, known simply as "Dr. Harry." A man who spent his boyhood in Baltimore as ringmaster of a backyard circus --- built from candy animals, cigar-box wagons and a bigtop tent made from four sacks --- Dr. Harry harbored secret dreams as a youth of being a circus high-wire walker.

If the frustrated showman were alive today, ironically enough he would hear zoo critics say his 69-year old stationary ark is fast becoming a stationary circus.

Complaints are voiced privately that management has neglected the society’s slated goals of conservation and education in favor of theme park entertainment.

Eventually, the buck stops in the zoo’s board room where an elite group meets once a month beneath an artist’s interpretation of an African village to carry forward Dr. Harry’s dream.

In addition, trustees lead 10 individual committees composed of about 150 community volunteers, who advise the board on every aspect of the society’s operations.

To arrive at the board, one starts off on a committee. The waiting lists are long.

Betty Jo Williams, the board’s only woman and one of three female trustees in the society’s history, joined the board in 1979 after a stint on the membership committee.

A past president of the Junior League, former director of the Natural History Museum and major fund-raiser for her alma mater Stanford University, Williams knows volunteer work.

"It’s great fun. It if volunteering you can’t have fun, move on," said the Point Loma housewife who assists her stockbroker husband, Harold, with his Old Globe Theater fund-raisers.

Though some zoo committee chairmanships are rotated every year, Williams has headed the education committee for six years. She is most proud of the zoo’s long-standing policy to admit all city school second-graders to the zoo for free.

Joining her regularly at her committee meetings is colleague Robert Sullivan, the oldest voting trustee at age 72. He has seen the fruits of the zoo’s education efforts. "My little grandson is proud to tell me that a koala is not a bear, it’s a marsupial."

Sullivan chairs the membership committee where he often runs afoul of colleagues and zoo officials unhappy with gate and concession receipts.

Sullivan rankles at their suggestion that paid-up members, admitted free on a variety of annual or life-membership plans, drain the zoo’s resources when they make frequent visits, picnic hampers in tow.

"More power to bigger memberships," Sullivan counters.

The board has always needed money, he points out, especially in the midst of the Depression when bankers were wary of loaning the zoo essential money for survival.

"We did not have any collateral except animals. Bankers take a dim view of loaning money on a rhinoceros."

During the 1930s the society boosted the number of directors from nine to 12 --- picking a banker, lawyer and newspaper publisher --- to widen its influence in the community.

Says Sullivan, "The board was always selected from people who were successful in their field of business and endeavor, because the zoo needed help in finance, business. . . . If you ever had to pay those fellas what they have been worth on the zoo board each year, it would be millions of dollars."

Next year, Sullivan will have served on the board 50 years --- but has mixed emotions about retirement. While acknowledging that the board is in need of new blood, he hates to say goodbye to an old friend.

"It gets to be so much a part of your life that what do you do without it.?"

Formerly in the lumber business, Sullivan has served on the San Diego Civic Light Opera, Great American First Savings Bank and the Old Globe Theater boards. The prestige now associated with membership on the zoo board is a fairly new phenomenon, he said. In the beginning "Nobody seemed to care. They just knew there was a roar in Balboa Park."

Sheldon Campbell, current zoological society president, was attracted to the roar at an early age.

Campbell spent his 16^th summer as an assistant to the reptile keeper, scrubbing the backs of turtles to keep them algae-free. For his labors he received a rattleskin from which he fashioned a belt --- but the real payoff came later.

That summer he worked closely with his friend, the late Chuck Shaw. Shaw later became the zoo’s reptile curator, and in 1962 angles to get his old friend appointed to the zoo’s public relations committee.

Campbell, then a stockbroker and writer, organized the zoo’s golden anniversary celebration with such zest he was asked to join the board when a vacancy arose in 1968.

"Being on a zoo committee was seen by most San Diegans as one of the most desirable volunteer tasks you can undertake. The zoo was to San Diego what a symphony or an opera might be to another city."

In 1978, flying home from Paris in the economy-class section, Campbell encountered a steward who noted the zoological society insignia on Campbell’s jacket. Delighted to meet a representative of the world-class zoo, the steward kept Campbell’s glass full of complimentary champagne from the first-class pantry for the rest of the flight.

Campbell deftly deflects criticism of the zoo, proudly stating the zoo pumps $250 million into the local economy. Problems will be solved, he says, with the unfolding of the zoo’s "Diamond Edge Plan," a five-year plan names in anticipation of the zoo’s 75^th anniversary.

About a number of recent Tribune articles based on U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection reports reporting deficiencies in the zoo’s sea lion tanks and large cat and bear housing, Campbell says the stories "left out factual material."

Trustees were aware of the problems, he says, and improvements were already in the works before the articles were published. "We’ll get it changed. It’s just a continual struggle," he vows.

Nevertheless Campbell says some trustees responded with "indignation to the newspaper reports." The zoo is not used to that. We’re used to a good press. We’ve created the largest and most successful zoo operation in the world due to the climate, the people of San Diego and the media. The media have contributed greatly."

Wegeforth’s society was incorporated one drizzly September day in 1916 in the offices of a San Diego newspaper in what was to be the first of many fruitful collaborations with the press.

Dr. Harry had convinced Clarence McGrew, and editor of The San Diego Union, to publish a plea to start a zoological society. The day before, while traversing Balboa Park with his brother, Dr. Harry had overheard the roar of a lion on display at an exposition and remarked, "Wouldn’t it be splendid if San Diego had a zoo? . . . I think I’ll start one."

The first animals Wegeforth adopted were the leftover lions, monkeys and bears from the 1916 Panama-California International Exposition. The next year, the zoo received animals from a beached Hollywood production about Noah’s Ark.

In its early years, inventory swelled by trading rattlesnakes and sea lions, readily available in Southern California. San Diegans would bring wild rabbits, bobcats, skunks and mountain lions from the countryside.

In 1924, a youthful Ivor de Kirby, destined to become a trustee, bought an $8 donkey with his brother, but after the braying disturbed neighbors, the brothers donated the beast to the zoo for rides.

Sailors supplied the society’s first Kodiak bears. After the bear grotto was full, Dr. Harry orders the surplus bears butchered and the meat sold to hotels.

Though today’s zoo fans might condemn such a facile solution, his son, Milton, a board member for 40 years and now a trustee emeritus, explains, "I don’t think there was any concern in the preservation of wildlife up to 1941," the year the elder Wegeforth died.

During the zoo’s early days, when a payroll couldn’t be met, the newspaper would announce the feeding of a boa constrictor. Dr. Harry would charge a 10 cents admission to watch sailors stretch out a long snake, insert a hose down its throat, hook up a sausage grinder and grind it full of food.

The shows were popular. The payrolls were met. The zoo always had a friend in the media.

Howard Chernoff, a former newspaper reporter, editor, television executive and now zoo trustee emeritus, joined the board in 1952, having served earlier on the public relations committee.

He lost no time pressing for one of then-director Dr. Charles Schroeder’s pet projects --- a children’s zoo.

His colleagues received the idea coolly, but the patient and persistent Chernoff resolved to persuade them. With his wife, Melva, the traveled 20,000 miles through the United States to find out what a children’s zoo should look like. Back home, it took 18 months to raise the money.

Chernoff took baby animals from the zoo on the lunch and dinner fund-raising circuit as part of his sales pitch.

"When a 6-year old looks at an elephant, he might as well look at the Empire State Building," Chernoff recalls explaining to skeptics.

Chernoff took emeritus status in 1969 after he was asked to be U.S. ambassador to Japan’s Expo 70. That experience kicked off 11 years of intricate negotiations to obtain a pair of rare Manchurian cranes.

Through business contacts in the South Pacific, Chernoff became personal friends with the King of Tonga, from whom he acquired a pair of Tongan iguanas --- three-foot long lizards.

Explains Chernoff, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "I asked the king. He said, ‘Sure.’ He got us the iguanas then he came here to see them."

Chernoff, in his 80s, says the board would benefit from younger members --- and more women. He suggests conferring emeritus status at age 65 instead of 75.

When Chernoff was KFMB Channel 8 general manager in the 1950s, he asked station manager Bill Fox to produce "Zoorama," a weekly program filmed at the zoo and syndicated on some 200 independent stations around the country during the 1950s and 1960s. Aired in Europe, Japan and Africa, it has been credited by zoo officials with putting the San Diego Zoo on the map.

After six years of show production, Fox was invited to join the zoo’s public relations committee. In 1978, Fox replaced trustee Lucy Killea, the society’s second female board member. Killea, now in the California Assembly, left the board for the San Diego City Council.

Fox, now general manager of KCST Channel 39, tapped newspaper, radio, advertising and retail talent to serve on the public relations committee, which he chairs. Channel 39 recently started airing "Animal Express," a show featuring zoo goodwill ambassador Joan Embery and zoo animals.

Aware of intense competition from other entertainment, Fox, 58, produced the packaging of exciting experiences to keep visitors returning to the zoo and Wild Animal Park.

"There was a time when there was a zoo in San Diego and there was not a lot of competition. The zoo lived on its reputation and people went there because it was there. Not anymore. For the last 15 years competition for leisure time has been growing."

Lt. Gen. Victor "Brute" Krulak, former newspaper executive, agrees. Says the retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, "There’s no doubt that Southern California is becoming a more recreation-intensive locality with every passing year."

A board member since 1968, Krulak, 70, was reluctant to express his individual opinions about zoo business.

"The zoo should speak with a sold voice. That’s how we stick together. That’s how we get on so well. That’s way we’re a success story."

Krulak logs about nine hours a week as chair of the zoo’s buildings and grounds committee and vice-chair of the finance committee. He dismisses the notion that the board membership is "glamorous" preferring to call it hard work. He adds, "The zoo has always been like motherhood in San Diego."

Formerly a vice president of Copley Press, Inc., Krulak still writes an opinion column in The Tribune. Active in civic affairs, he has served on about 45 local and national boards.

His favorite zoo creature is the koala. "Koalas are very dear to this zoo and they’ve always been very dear to me. And they belong here. They eat only one thing --- eucalyptus. That means they’re in Fat City in San Diego.

Though local board members have diverse backgrounds, they have been criticized for a lack of botanical and zoological expertise. Some zoo employees say trustees reject the advice of expert professional staff, interfere with day-to-day decisions, commit money to impractical projects and play favorites among the staff.

The board also has come under fire for a "good old boy" system of director selection, resulting in few women and no minorities in its history.

One employee said some committee members are appointed, not because they have a specialty valuable to the committee, but because they are a friend of the chairman or other official.

Recently, the board was criticized by Herbert Fredman, Tribune op-ed columnist, who accused it of operating a "non-profit oligarchy." Fredman argued that because the zoo receives $1.5 million in annual city taxes, and, like all tax-exempt organizations is subsidized by other taxpayers, it should be accountable to the public.

Indeed, some of the board’s unilateral actions, such as the decision to destroy eucalyptus trees in the Balboa Park parking lots, have enraged local citizens. Another storm of protest erupted when the zoo announced --- and later delayed --- plans to charge parking fees in the same city-owned lots. A parking fee was instituted at the Wild Animal Park.

And some trustees say privately that San Diego’s changing demographics should be examined in selecting future board members. But publicly, they say their dazzling successes have been achieved because they have operated in private, free from the compromises required when negotiating for public money.

Trustee Ivor de Kirby, 69, made his fortune in cars. A former city councilman and longtime Ford dealer, de Kirby was admitted to the zoo board in 1966. He was names Mr. San Diego four years later.

A childhood friend of the Wegeforths, who donated his pet donkey to the zoo for rides, de Kirby ingested zoo talk with dinner as a guest in Dr. Harry’s home.

Chair of the animal park’s buildings and grounds committee, de Kirby admits the park’s "obscure" location next to Escondido worries him.

But with bullish optimism, he says improved signs, more advertising and a good road between Interstate 5 and the park will draw enough tourists from San Diego, Orange and San Bernardino counties to keep the breeding park alive.

De Kirby opposes further government aid to the society because of the strings it would attach.

He was among a group of 15 who tool former zoo director Schroeder on a five-week trip to the African wild as a retirement present.

And he traveled with a delegation to Australia in 1976 to pick up six koalas, a gift from that country. En route, the cuddly marsupials dined on eucalyptus leaves and rode in the airplane’s passenger section from which seats had been removed to accommodate the bulky cages. During layovers, the koalas napped with the delegation at fancy hotels.

Another driving businessman is trustee A. Eugene Trepte, 59, president of one of San Diego’s larger and older construction firms.

Trepte built the Old Globe Theater, a pioneer solar system at University High School, a surgical wing for Children’s Hospital, and, at the request of the Tom and Suzanne Warner family, the zoo’s $1.9 million Warner Administration Building two years ago.

Chair of the finance committee, Trepte says of the board. "Those 12 seats are very precious. We have always rowed the boat well together. . . . We have come to the realization that we are not going to think alike, and when the majority rules, we shut up."

Trepte also sits on the Old Globe Theater, San Diego Trust and Savings Bank and University of San Diego boards.

A strong backer of the Wild Animal Park, Trepte considers it "the zoo of the future" as San Diego County continues its expansion north.

Limited parking in Balboa Park will hold zoo attendance at about 3 million annually for years to come, he guesses.

Although a parking structure has been discussed, the builder says he doesn’t think it likely.

Noting the public has fought to leave as much greenery as possible in the park, Trepte says, "I kind of go along with them."

Trustee John Thornton, 53, ranks among the city’s top businessmen. The only member of the board who refused to be interviewed by The Tribune, Thornton recently resigned from Wavetek Corp., which had named him president and chief executive officer at age 32.

He earned a reputation as "boy wonder" for turning a small $1-million-a-year instrumentation firm into an $84 million company in 20 years.

Thornton joined the board in 1972, after serving on the public relations committee more than 10 years. In a deposition taken last year when the zoological society was sued, Thornton admitted the directors and top executives lack zoological backgrounds.

"What I would loosely call the technicians, the people with the animal skills, didn’t necessarily have some of the other skills, and that’s why there frankly are very few if any with curatorial or animal skills in the administrative segment of the business."

Though trustees lack professional credentials in botany and zoology, as a group the dote on animals and tend lush gardens.

Dr. Harry kept turkeys, chickens and blue-ribbon stock on his 10-acre Paradise Valley ranch. One day he took some ranch bantam hens to the zoo because "the little children could care less about a tiger or an elephant, but they liked to chase the animals," explains Milton Wegeforth.

Dr. Harry experimented with official fund-raising tricks. One he went to a businessman for help in efforts to buy an elephant. The man replied, "If you find me a white elephant, I’ll give you the money." Wegeforth whitewashed an elephant and got the money.

Wegeforth’s successor, Belle Benchley, matched him in spirit. Though called an executive secretary, in fact, she ran the zoo from 1927 until 1953, blazing a trail as the first zoo director to keep leaf-eating monkeys alive in captivity. Her secret --- feed then alfalfa.

Benchley adored Mbongo and Ngagi, two male mountain gorillas, now cast in bronze inside the zoo’s gates. The pair was captured in the Belgian Congo in the 1930s by the husband-and-wife exploring ream of Martin and Osa Johnson, who donated them to the zoo.

Benchley once barred cub reporter Sheldon Campbell from entering the zoo after his newspaper, the now-defunct San Diego Sun, ran a photograph of Ringling Bros. Circus gorilla Gargantua next to a Campbell story on the popular pair.

Benchley said the zoo was a public trust. When Schroeder, a veterinarian employed as a production manager of New York’s Lederle Laboratories, replaced her in 1953, she gave him one piece of advice. "Just keep in mind this is not a business."

"This is a business," Schroeder later recalled in an interview. "I immediately instituted all the things you would do in a business right away. We used to say at the zoo that you have a product and your concern is selling. It’s a continuous thing, money, money, money. You have to be very cold, very practical."

The first thing the new director did was to buy a mechanical sweeper and a Dictaphone.

The debate between public trust versus the bottom line has raged ever since, as the society has grown from 41 members in 1917 to its present strength of 102,795.

Trustee Dr. Albert Anderson, 61, admits that when he joined the board four years ago, succeeding Milton Wegeforth, he thought a little more commercialism was the way to go. He has since changed his mind.

"I’m probably not quite as conservative as possibly some of the other board members and I was very interested in corporate programs and interested in some things which I felt would bring more people in. When I first went on the board, I felt that maybe we should be more like a Disneyland, doing some exciting things. Now I have learned that this is not what people really want. They want animals."

A dentist, board member of Children’s Hospital, Mr. San Diego of 1981, past president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, member of the Stadium Authority, vice president of President Reagan’s Committee on Metal Retardation, and former campaign manager of Sen. Pete Wilson’s mayoral and U.S. Senate campaigns, Anderson says, "I’m a social prostitute. I just enjoy doing it."

He was asked to serve on the board by two-term president George Gildred. Before joining he had served on the public relations committee about five years.

On a zoo’s trustee’s perks, Anderson mused, "We got to meet the queen’s husband . . . I travel a lot in Europe and whenever I do I always take my zoo cards with me, like a business card, if I visit any of the zoos around the world. It just gives us an entree that is sensational. It’s like a big fraternity. They minute you say you’re from the San Diego Zoo, they want you co come and see their best exhibits, the back of the zoo."

If Anderson is a civic star, trustee Gildred shines as brightly.

Gildred, 51, remembers as a lad hearing zoo howls from the family’s Cypress Avenue house. His father, the late Philip Gildred, built the downtown Fox Theater and backed other projects --- the Community Concourse --- Anza-Borrego State Park and the county administration building. The elder Gildreds donated a half-million dollars to build the Fine Arts Gallery east wing.

George, now in a real-estate partnership with is brother, joined the board in 1973 after serving for years on the animal collection committee.

His three-page resume lists associations with more than 35 cultural and civic boards, including consul to the Republic of Chile, a post he inherited from his father.

In 1982 Gildred, then society president, joined a 13-member delegation on a visit to five Chinese cities, clearing the way for the subsequent arrival in San Diego of China’s golden-haired douc langur monkeys.

In a zoo near a giant panda game reserve in the Szechwan Province, Gildred and others were paid a great complement --- keepers led a 13-month-old panda into a public area and let the U.S. visitors pet the rare animal.

One of the board’s youngest members, Gildred bubbles with enthusiasm when he talks of the golden monkey exchange --- "more important than letting the pandas out" --- or his dusk excursions on the Wild Animal Park monorail or the antics of his "dear friend" Kakowitz, a pygmy chimpanzee who died five years ago.

"He was such a wonderful father. I loved watching his tribe grow up around him. He was an ideal family man."

From Gildred’s 20^th-floor office in the sleek, modern Imperial Bank building downtown, it is two blocks to the old-fashioned San Diego Trust and Savings building, where trustee J. Dallas Clark works on the 10^th floor. Clark’s grandfather founded San Diego Trust and Savings Bank in 1889.

Clark, an industrial developer, became a trustee in 1969 after having served on the buildings and grounds committee for 11 years.

His small office is decorated with a portrait of an African Masai woman, animal sculptures from the zoo gift shop and a painting done by one of his two daughters, an artist who paints botanical subjects.

On his desk is a large photograph of one daughter clutching his new grandchild. Clark is tall, soft-spoken, methodical. Freckles dot his balding sunburned scalp, fringed with white hair.

In the early 1970s, Clark started the development --- or fund-raising --- department --- an activity that "you’re just always doing."

He chairs the animal collection committee. It is typical, he says, for trustees to attend meetings of committees other than their own. When Trepte’s finance committee meets, for instance, in addition to its three board members, five others are likely to attend.

"I’ve never known a board with such unanimity as this one."

Clark laughs at the suggestion a trusteeship is glamorous or prestigious. "Maybe I’m kind of low-key, but I don’t go for that. It’s hard work."

What does he find exciting in 1975. Clark visited the Canton Zoo with a delegation that included mammals curator Dr. Jim Dolan. They passed by an enclosure for two rhinoceros given to the Chinese by zoo officials. When the beats heard Dolan speaking English, they trotted over to see him. Dolan reached out and stroked their scaly hides.

"And that’s a sight I don’t think any of us will forget --- this one rhinoceros running over and Dr. Dolan patted his head!"

Heading up the research, conservation and health committee is Dr. Lee S. Monroe, a retired Scripps Clinic internist and author of several books on parasitic diseases.

He was drafted for the committee about 10 years ago because of his medical knowledge and appointed to the board about five years later. His committee meets once a month with about 12 zoo staff members. "It’s fun, but it’s some work. They have more meetings at the zoo than Carter has pills."

Monroe, 65, notes the zoo’s contributions to animal-disease research --- including a project to study a virus killing African cattle and another to design a hormone pump to increase the reproductive abilities of an endangered Komodo lizard.

But Monroe warns than panic at the current financial squeeze could backfire. He cautions against luring visitors with flashy new programs of marketing. Instead management should "have a steady hand on the wheel and not get too excited." He says the zoo’s natural attractions will suffice.

Monroe vehemently opposes any more government aid to the zoo. He dismisses the current 2-cent tax levy, saying it "really doesn’t even pay the water bill.

"The thrust should be toward making this a San Diego Zoo that is run for and by the people, with their money."

These trustees have seen changes in animal husbandry unimaginable to the zoo’s founders --- the disappearance from the wild of hundreds of species, forcing zoos to rely on expensive breeding programs, restrictions on animal trade since passage of the 1972 Endangered Species Act, sky-high prices for animals once donated to the zoo, unstable political situations in the rest of the world hampering certain animal exchanges.

Furthermore, the environmental movement of the last two decades has caused people to view animals with greater reverence --- as links in a complicated and vast network that ultimately supports man. Meanwhile, advances in science have revealed animals’ complex physical and psychological needs.

Back in the days when Wegeforth patrolled the zoo’s chaparral-covered 100 acres o his Arabian stallion, ""people weren’t as considerate toward animals," Campbell admits.

Now, some zoo keepers with advanced degrees in animal behavior and the sciences assail the board and the administration for lack of scientific training.

They dismiss the board as a rich man’s social club, while envying its power.

Trustees admit the board’s power is awesome, even compared to other boards on which they have served.

Says Fox, "The society board is so involved in the operation that we are not an advisory board, we’re like the board of directors of a major corporation that makes the decisions."

Says Anderson, comparing the zoo board to the Stadium Authority, "I don’t think the Stadium Authority is as important as . . . the zoo board. The stadium authority is advisory. On a number of occasions where the stadium board has voted in favor of things, the city council has overriden them."

The city council does not override the zoo.

Those who wonder in what direction the zoo is headed might recall the answer to the question about where a 10,000-lb. elephant sleeps --- anywhere it wants.

Says president Campbell, noting the zoo’s multimillion-dollar needs, "There’s an old Chinese adage that says, ‘He who rides the tiger can’t get off.’ And we’re riding a tiger."

(Tribune staff writers Susan Duerksen and Rita Calvano also contributed to his report.)

The trio that runs the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park knows the business of attracting and amusing tourists --- each had made a career of organizing tours, designing show stages, and feeding hungry throngs.

All three came to the San Diego Zoological Society in the past three years, two from Universal Studios and one from an Anheuser-Busch theme park. Their ages range from 31 to 36. Two have no college degrees and the other finished college four years ago.

They are known for working long hours in an effort to bring innovative business sense to what has become a mammoth corporation facing strong competition for the entertainment dollar.

• Douglas Myers, 35, took over as the society’s executive director, the top administrator for both and zoo and park in February.

After holding several managerial positions at the Busch Gardens parks in Los Angeles County and Williamsburg, Va., Myers was hired as general manager of the Wild Animal Park in January 1982.

• In June of that year he brought in Robert McClure as operations manager of the park. McClure, 31, had been an assistant food-service manager at Busch Gardens before moving on to food management with Marineland and then Universal Studios tours in Los Angeles.

When Myers became the society’s deputy director in 1983, McClure took over as general manager of the park.

• In June 1982, Terry Winnick was hired as general manager of the zoo. Now 36, Winnick has spent 14 years with MCA Inc., a conglomerate that owns Universal Studios. Starting as a tour guide, Winnick worked his way up to managing shows, special effects and other visitor services for the studio tours. His former colleagues say he was a "whiz kid."

Lush greenery, shocking pink flamingos, screeching macaws, fragrant blossoms and towering palm trees overwhelm the visitor stepping inside the gate of the San Diego Zoo.

For many out-of-towners, already seduced by the sunshine and sea breezes, the jungle paradise confirms everything they’ve heard about the San Diego Zoo --- it’s the best in the world.

Over the years the zoo has become a worldwide legend. Its reputation spread by visiting military personnel, the internationally broadcast "Zoorama" and, more recently, by Joan Embery’s 45 appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show.

Other established cities had their operas and museums --- San Diego was known first for its zoo. And its residents, who take the zoo’s pre-eminence as a tenet of San Diego life, have supported the non-profit zoological society with memberships, donations and generous bequests.

But take away the foliage and San Diego’s climate and you’re left with a 69-year old institution that some say is feeling its age and scrambling to keep up with younger competition.

And for the past decade financial losses at the zoo’s Wild Animal Park near Escondido have further strained the budget at the main zoo, contributing to policy decisions that are being criticized by some animal specialists both within the zoo and elsewhere.

As the management experiments with new revenue-boosting attractions, discontent has swelled among animal "purists" who fear the venerable institution is going show-biz. The conflict erupts in sometimes rancorous accusations by animal caretakers who question the Hollywood occupation of a new breed of managers.

While the zoo still is considered among the best in the world, zoological experts across the nation say some smaller zoos are overtaking San Diego with creative exhibits, biological research and conservation programs --- on much thinner budgets.

"The San Diego Zoo is, of course, very well known among other zoos --- it’s one of the most highly advertised," said Elvie Turner, director of the Fort Worth, Texas, zoo and president of the 156-member American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. "But it’s not quite like it was. Other zoos are catching up. I’ve heard some complaints that it’s beginning to be an amusement-type operation rather than what is generally regarded as a scientific type of operation."

But Sheldon Campbell, president of the San Diego Zoological Society board, which runs the zoo and the Wild Animal Park, said only three other zoos in the world --- East and West Berlin and the Bronx Zoo in New York City --- even come close to the number and rarity of animals in the San Diego collection.

"The zoo operation we run is the largest and most successful in history. There’s no question about it."

Together, the San Diego and Wild Animal Park’s expenditure of about $45 million, is more than double its main U.S. rival, the Bronx Zoo. The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park have 5,400 animals, surpassed only by the West Berlin zoo, which has 8,000 animals.

William Conway, director of the Bronx Zoological Society, said it’s hard to rate zoos, but San Diego has some stiff competition.

"The best waterfowl collection in the world is in England (near Stroud). The best exhibit of nocturnal animals is in the Bronx. The greatest number of species is in West Berlin. The best gorilla exhibit is in Seattle. The best seals and sea lions are in Tacoma. San Diego has a long history with koalas but Los Angeles put together a much more exciting exhibit."

David Hancocks, a zoo-design architect and former director of Woodland Park Zoological Gardens in Seattle, made a harsher assessment. "My feeling is that if you took away those nice flowers and ferns the San Diego Zoo would be a pretty bleak place. All the animals ever see is the perimeter of the wall around them . . . but they don’t have places to get out of view."

In response, San Diego Zoo officials point to their long-range plan to rebuild the entire zoo in roomy, natural exhibits. That plan will take at least 35 years to complete, but in the meantime the older enclosures are renovated as money becomes available, Campbell said.

"The exhibits range from bleak to outstanding, and in they future they will all be outstanding," Campbell said. "We’ll get it changed. It’s just a continuous struggle."

Zoo directors in colder climates and with smaller budgets admit their criticisms sound like sour grapes. While viewing the San Diego Zoo with a tinge of jealousy, some also are annoyed by its unwavering claim to be No. 1.

They laud the zoo for its research, particularly genetic breeding and its program to raise California condors and return the endangered bird to the wild. About a third of the research department’s $800,000 budget is obtained through private donations and the rest comes from general zoo revenues.

And they agree San Diego maintains the largest collection of animals, and is the most self-supporting of major zoos, using taxes for a tiny fraction of its $50 million budget.

However, inside the zoo, dozens of employees, ranging from animal keepers to department heads, in confidential interviews with The Tribune have questioned the spending priorities of what has become a large corporation. In recent years, they say, the emphasis has been on recreation and entertainment at the expense of conservation, education and the quality of animal exhibits.

Some animal handlers say privately that animal care is neglected, resulting in boredom, illness or even death. They say visitors who look closely would see monkeys crowded in substandard 5-year old pens, cats pacing old-fashioned concrete and wire cages and bears and rhinos without mates.

Board President Campbell counters that many employees are not aware of the money spent on "off-view" facilities benefiting the animals, including construction of a $1.4 million animal hospital in 1977 and two primate-breeding centers built in 1979 and 1983 for about $1.1 million.

"All these most of our employees haven’t seen," he said.

The highly visible food stands and gift shops, which have cost about $2 million to build in the past 10 years, have long ago paid for themselves and continue to support the rest of the zoo, Campbell said.

Concessions such as food sales now account for 36 percent of the revenue, while another 28 percent comes from admissions and 9 percent from annual memberships.

In a five-year plan unveiled two months ago, zoo officials announced their intention to get half their revenue from as yet untapped sources by the end of 1989, reducing the reliance on gate receipts. Executive Director Douglas Myers said it "would not be good business" to reveal potential new revenue sources.

In addition to the ongoing courtship of monied animal lovers, the zoo is turning to sponsorship of specific exhibits or programs by corporations. For instance, local companies financed many of the zoo’s current tour buses and Eastman Kodak has become a major corporate sponsor, pledging $100,000 a year for five years.

The new $800,000 Hunte Amphitheater also is expected to increase revenue by drawing visitors away from the congested front areas of the zoo and improving crowd turnover, Campbell said. It was built with money from a donor who picked the amphitheater from a list of five zoo projects that needed financing, he said.

The $1.9 million Warner Administration Center, built in 1983, is another object of criticism from some employees. But donors Tom and Suzanne Warner specified their money was to be used to consolidate the zoo’s administrative offices, which had been scattered in several buildings.

Donors are more inclined to given money to build "brand new things" than to repair the old, Campbell said.

Day-to-day decisions on spending money are made by the zoo’s administrators, not donors. Many of the lifelong "animal people" who work for the zoo are chafing under the leadership of young executives whom they blame for tilting the zoo away from conservation and education and toward competition with a myriad of Southern California attractions, such as Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and Sea World.

Executive Director Myers and the general managers of both the zoo and the Wild Animal Park were hired within the past three years. All three have management backgrounds with Universal Studios or Anheuser-Busch theme parks and none has zoo experience.

This hiring pattern bucks a national trend, said Bob Wagner of Jackson, Miss., executive director of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, which was headed last year by Charles Bieler, former executive director of the San Diego Zoological Society. About 15 years ago, zoos across the country tended to seek administrators with business or management backgrounds, but now have reversed that practice, he said.

"In most cases in recent years, when there has been a change in zoo directors, the search committee has selected zoo-trained professionals," believing it better to hire assistants with business expertise, Wagner said.

"You need an animal person at the top, and put the business people under him," said Edward Maruska, director of the Cincinnati Zoo. "The man at the top is the controlling factor on how well an exhibit is built, how well the collection is managed."

Campbell said that although Myers does not have a zoo background he is an "animal man" who worked closely with the 136-species bird collection at the now defunct Busch Gardens in Van Nuys. Beginning as a bird keeper, Myers also was a tour manager, animal collection manager and general service manager during his 11 years with Anheuser-Busch Co. Shortly before the bird sanctuary was closed five years ago to make way for expansion of a brewery, he moved to the Busch Gardens location in Williamsburg, Va.

"I have a significant amount of animal experience," he said, noting that the theme park also had a collection of otters, penguins,, sea lions and small primates.

However, Campbell said Myers was hired "primarily as a manager" when he was selected to manage the Wild Animal Park in 1982. He was promoted to executive director of the society in February of this year.

Myers, in turn, said both general managers who report to him, Terry Winnick of the zoo and Bob McClure of the Wild Animal Park, were hired for their management experience.

McClure had worked in food and merchandising for Busch Gardens in Van Nuys, Marineland in Palos Verdes and for Universal Studio tours. Winnick spent 14 years at Universal Studios, staring as a tour guide and working his way up to director of special effects and shows, including trained animal acts.

Myers said their management strengths are supported by an unsurpassed group of curators who are in charge of the animals.

"We need somebody to watch the business side, because we have tremendous professionals on the animal side," Myers said. "It’s a balance."

McClure said he depends on the animal and plant expertise of his staff and sees himself as the coordinator of a team that runs the park.

But to some of the animal caretakers they supervise, these newcomers have a distorted focus on the balance sheet instead of the animals.

"Upper management doesn’t understand animal-health themes because that’s not a high priority for them," one employee said. "So you go home with a twisted gut (when something happens to an animal) but they don’t because they’re worried about whether Canyon Café came up short that day."

Said another, with 10 years experience at the zoo, "The emphasis of the management has certainly changed. Its’ gotten more and more removed from going a good job for the animals. When I first started at the zoo, money was not an overriding, all-encompassing concern."

Among the controversial allocations in the zoo’s budget is $5 million a year for advertising and promotions --- more than the entire budget of such other prominent zoos as Cincinnati, Denver and Los Angeles. Myers said the expenditure is necessary to draw the 4.5 million visitors to the zoo and park each year.

In addition to TV ads and a magazine, those promotions include trained-animal acts, one of the sharpest points of contention in the entertainment debate.

The Wild Animal Park features three such shows and the zoo just spent $800,000 to build it second amphitheater for a new show. But national association president Turner said the use of trained animals is becoming less common at other zoos.

"Most of the zoos feel they are not in that kind of business," Turner said. However, he added that San Diego has "a giant operation, and the revenues are very important. I know everybody has to try to make money."

Wagner, the national executive director, said the animal acts he has seen in San Diego are "in good taste and educational," but he would not use them at the Jackson, Miss., zoo where he is director.

"I’m a bit of a purist," he said. "I think trained-animal acts are fine for circuses and captive displays and conservation are for zoos."

San Diego also excels in the scientific areas, Myers said, with a breeding program responsible for upgrading the status of white rhinos from endangered to threatened and unprecedented successes with many other species.

Myers said San Diego’s shows are carefully planned to illustrate natural behaviors of the animals. Amid public criticism, Myers recently canceled plans to use non-zoo animals trained for movies in a show at the new zoo amphitheater. Zoo animals will be used instead.

In addition to questioning priorities, some zoo employees cite what they consider to be wasteful use of funds, including several exhibits they say were poorly designed, requiring repair and remodeling.