Aug. 2 Primary: Detroit Zoo Millage Goes Before Oakland, Macomb, Wayne Voters

ROYAL OAK, MI — Voters in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties will be asked in the Aug. 2 primary election to continue a 0.1-mill property tax that supports operations at the Detroit Zoo, bringing in about $11 million a year.

Taxes won’t increase if the renewal is approved, but will continue at the same level as when voters first approved it in 2008. It amounts to about $10 a year in taxes for the owner of a $200,000 home.

The current millage doesn’t expire until the end of 2017, and the renewal, if approved, woudn’t take effect ntil 2018.

“It is a common practice and good planning to seek voter approval of a renewal prior to the expiration of the current millage,” zoo spokeswoman Patricia Mills Janeway told The Detroit News. “An early millage renewal will give us ample time to prepare for next year’s buget.”

The millage was approved by comfortable margins in 2008 — by 74.9 percent in Oakland County, 73.2 percent in Wayne County and 66.5 percent in Macomb County — and is expected to pass again, based both on the approval in 2008, but also on polls conducted last year.

“Likely voters in southeast Michigan feel passionate about the Detroit Zoo and its importance to the community in terms of value, uniqueness, childhood development and as a sanctuary in which people can experience nature," Janeway told the Detroit Free Press.

There is no organized opposition to the levy renewal, but there are detractors.

The Wayne County Taxpayers Association, for example, hasn’t taken a formal stand against millage renewal, but the organization’s president, Rose Bogaert, of Dearborn Heights, told the Free Press she is voting against it.

Among her complaints is a donor-funded cruise to Antarctica that 19 zoo emplyees and 30 major donors took to Antarctica earlier this year in advance of the opening of the Polk Penguin Conservation Center, the largest indoor facility of its kind in the world.

Bogaert also questioned a nearly $500,000 increase in zoo CEO and director Ron Kagan’s compensation package, to $767,824 in 2014 from $292,644 in 2011. Much of the increase was in his retirement plan, Janeway told the Free Press.

“The zoo is still run like a country club,” Bogaert said. “The people who go to Antarctica aren’t the people who take care of the animals.”

Michigan Taxpayers Alliance chairman Leon Drolet, who lives in Macomb Township, told the Free Press the millage burdens people who can’t afford to visit the zoo, putting them in a position of subsiddizing “the comfortable folks” who can afford zoo memberships and daily admission prices.

About 12,000 “Renew the Zoo” yard signs have been planted by supporters, who say the 125-acre zoo is a regional tourism destination that has an annual economic impact of about $100,000 a year.

“I think the zoo has demonstrated that they have been using that (millage) money wisely,” state Rep. Kurt Heise, R- Plymouth Township, told the Free Press. “I think they showed that they are entitled to another resumption of public funding.”

Grace Shore, a member of the Macomb County Zoological Authority, told The Detroit News the zoo is “a jewel here in southeast Michigan.”

“And we need to protect it, preserve it and build on it,” she said.

“This is a renewal and not an increase and is crucial in maintaining one of our prized jewels,” Alisa Bell, Wayne County Commission vice chairwoman and chairwoman of the Wayne County Zoological Authority, told The Detroit News.

“The vast majority of residents in this state, as well as people from surrounding states, have visited the Detroit Zoo at one time or another and have been amazed at witnessing nature’s beauty right in front of them,” Bell said.

Oakland County Commissioner John Scott, a Waterford Township Democrat, was one of three commssioners to vote against putting the renewal on the Aug. 2 ballot.

“I only voted no because I felt they were coming to us too early,” Scott told The Detroit News. “I thought it more appropriate to wait for the current millage to expire and renew it at that time.”

If the measure fails in any of the counties Tuesday, it will be placed on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, Janeway said.

Image credit: Detroit Zoo