Editor’s note: St. Louis County voters approved the Proposition Z sales tax on Nov. 6 with 61 percent of votes in favor.
IN 2013 THE SAINT LOUIS ZOO MADE A SPLASH when it unveiled a “framework plan” intended to guide its growth and expansion over the next 30 years. Zoo leaders and a nonprofit boosters group had cooperated a year earlier on the $6 million purchase of a former hospital site in Dogtown, directly across Highway 40 (I-64) from the zoo’s main campus in Forest Park. In its plan, the zoo dangled visions (none yet realized) of a major new attraction, an administration building, a zoo-themed hotel and a revamped parking system designed to remove ugly rows of cars from the park, thereby freeing up more space for animals to roam. The plan even included a picture of gondolas crossing Highway 40. It was a fittingly grand vision for one of the best zoos in America.
Then earlier this year the Zoo raised the stakes further with the $7.1 million purchase by the same boosters group of 425 acres in north St. Louis County, near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. This huge piece of land is almost five times bigger than the original zoo. It will be home to a safari park for visitors and a conservation and animal science center, reflecting the zoo’s evolving mission as a center for research and education.
Grand visions don’t come cheap. So on Tuesday voters in the county will decide whether to increase sales taxes to help fund the north county project and support the maintenance of the Zoo’s original campus. Proposition Z asks voters to approve a 1/8 of one percent sales tax; a business or household that makes $20,000 in taxable purchases in the county each year would pay an extra $25. This would raise roughly $20 million for the zoo annually, and it would come in addition to a special property tax that county residents (along with their counterparts in St. Louis City) have been paying since the early 1970s. That tax supports the zoo and four other institutions covered by the Zoo-Museum taxing district; last year the zoo received over $22 million from it.
The zoo is one of the jewels in the crown of the St. Louis region; it’s right up there with the Arch, the Cardinals and toasted ravioli. So questioning the zoo’s intentions is regarded by some locals as a form of heresy. If you oppose the sales tax, it could be interpreted as a lack of sensitivity to the needs of animals like red pandas and two-toed sloths. Zoo supporters who consider themselves especially woke could accuse you of “othering” fellow primates like western lowland gorillas. You might even be called names behind your back. Who wants to be known as a penguin hater?
There is no organized opposition to Prop Z and voter turnout in the midterms is looking strong, so the odds are good that the sales tax will pass. But this hasn’t stopped rumblings of dissent, including from the former chairman of the Zoo-Museum district and a former state senator. Critics rightly note that sales taxes, which are regressive, are already close to 10 percent in some areas of St. Louis County. They also argue that the zoo, which prides itself on offering free entrance to everyone, is only delaying the day of reckoning when its expensive ambitions finally force it to introduce admission fees for visitors from outside St. Louis city and county, since they don’t pay the property tax. At least one observer points out that the zoo has already conceded the debate on admission fees, since zoo officials say that if Prop Z passes, everyone but St. Louis County residents will pay to enter the new safari park.
Objectives and opportunism
The dissent over Prop Z is noteworthy, and it points to two reasons why sales tax proposals, despite the money they would raise, could end up harming the zoo in the long run.
First, measures such as Prop Z hitch the zoo’s wagon ever more firmly to the region’s politicians, who preside over a metropolitan area that’s fragmented in the extreme. The new tax would not apply to the city or areas like St. Charles County that are home to a substantial proportion of zoo visitors. This is not for lack of trying on the zoo’s part. When its leaders unveiled the plan for the Dogtown expansion in 2013, and later while negotiating the north county land purchase, they made it clear they wanted legislation at the state level that would allow them to put sales taxes on the ballot in Franklin, Jefferson, St. Charles and St. Louis counties, as well as in the city. But lawmakers in Jefferson City, wary of tax increases generally, pulled the outlying counties from the enabling legislation. Then this past summer, officials in St. Louis City (where taxes for the police and fees for garbage collection have already increased recently) dissuaded the zoo from pursuing a sales tax there, at least for the time being.
The result is the prospect of a sales tax increase in St. Louis County alone. It’s being asked to foot a much bigger chunk of the bill for what is unquestionably a regional asset. This is a textbook case of fragmentation in action. The zoo told McPherson it “hopes to get full regional support in the future.” But in the meantime, the zoo’s focus on tax revenue has reduced it to pursuing a stealthy, county-by-county approach that’s subject to the whims of opportunistic politicians. And the zoo’s refusal to consider admission fees for its main campus has fed charges of unfairness. This erodes public support.
The second reason for caution on sales taxes is that they threaten to warp the zoo’s priorities for engaging its key constituent groups. There are three main groups the zoo counts on for support: taxpayers, visitors and donors. Each of these accounts for roughly one-third of the zoo’s budget. Depending on where you live and how supportive you are of the zoo, you could belong to one, two or all three groups. (Or none.)
Sales taxes are poor tools for building relationships. A sales tax by definition is transactional; it has little capacity to nurture an affinity between those who pay the tax and those who receive the proceeds. A property tax, based on ownership of a large fixed asset, probably does a little better in this regard, but not much.
Visitors and donors, by contrast, are people with whom the zoo has true relationships. Right now visitors walk through the front gates for free, but many of them pay for parking and food on the way to see the hippos swimming and the birds gliding across the aviary. Donors are better still, because they validate the zoo’s mission of conservation, research and education, and help promote it through networks of friends and colleagues.
Looking beyond Prop Z
Regardless of whether Prop Z passes on Tuesday, after the vote the zoo should consider steps to show the public it is putting visitors and donors, rather than taxpayers, back at the forefront of its long-term development efforts.
A first step would be to present an updated comprehensive plan that lays out not only the zoo’s plans to transform itself over the next couple of decades, but how the various pieces (Forest Park, Dogtown and north St. Louis County) will fit together. Area residents might understandably be confused about the zoo’s strategy, given its zigzags so far this decade. In 2013 the zoo’s “framework plan” put the 13.5-acre Dogtown site at the center of its expansion. Then in 2015 the zoo launched a short-lived attempt to buy the 198-acre Grant’s Farm, the country estate of the Busch family in south St. Louis County. The zoo dropped the plan in early 2016 amid squabbles within the family over the sale. A month later came talk of a $500 million, 25-year development plan with domes over parts of the Forest Park campus, platforms for visitors to feed giraffes, and that gondola (again).
The zoo also signaled in 2016 its intentions for the north county safari park. But this past September, when it completed the land purchase and discussed plans for the Prop Z sales tax, it omitted any mention of the $500 million vision. (The Prop Z website and Facebook page make the same omission.) The Dogtown property has been cleared and landscaped, but six years after its purchase it sits unused, except for times when the zoo needs it for overflow parking. (Zoo officials told McPherson in an e-mail that they’re planning for the long term: “Which plans are ultimately realized for the land south of the Forest Park campus will depend on the zoo’s strategic needs, funding and public discussion.”)
This points to the need for something else: a public plan to pay for everything based on transparency and confidence, rather than stealth. At current prices Prop Z would generate roughly $400 million for the zoo over the next 20 years; St. Louis County is the largest county in the region by far, making it the biggest prize for sales tax revenue. Rather than fighting divisive battles for similar taxes in smaller, more obstinate counties, the zoo should work with lawmakers on changes to state law that would allow it to start charging admission to non-residents of St. Louis city and county. Let them contribute as visitors instead of as taxpayers.
This would lay to rest arguments about unfairness, and put the zoo on a stronger footing when it launches its next fundraising campaign targeting individual and corporate donors. Successful campaigns have the potential to be far more unifying for the region that tax increases, and to their lasting credit St. Louisans have shown repeatedly they will step up for a deserving cause. The last zoo campaign, which wrapped up in 2014, raised $134 million. The zoo could likely raise significantly more in its next effort, assuming it has a clear and compelling story to back its expansion plans.
As it considers the future, the zoo could draw a useful lesson from the animals it cares for. They have to adapt to their environment, and the zoo should do the same. Tax increases in most parts of Missouri, like some of the zoo’s residents, are an endangered species. Public goodwill toward the zoo, by comparison, is merely vulnerable. It is not endangered, at least not yet. –McP–
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