As a former board member of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, I’ve watched with growing alarm as the institution I once proudly supported has become emblematic of the City of Los Angeles’ broader inability to manage complex cultural and educational assets. The recent dustup with GLAZA and its $50 million dissolution of the zoo’s partnership with its primary nonprofit supporter represents not just a financial catastrophe, but a damning indictment of both zoo leadership and the city’s governance failures. And a clear lack of competency on the part of the zoo’s director.
In 2018, the Los Angeles city controller conducted an audit that revealed troubling patterns of poor oversight, inadequate financial controls, and a concerning lack of transparency between the zoo and its nonprofit partner. Rather than addressing these systemic issues, current Zoo Director Denise Verret has presided over their acceleration. The complete breakdown of the 50-year partnership with the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association didn’t happen overnight—it’s the culmination of years of deteriorating relationships, poor communication, and misaligned priorities, coupled with an attitude of treating GLAZA as an ATM instead of an equal partner.
With Los Angeles facing a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall, the timing couldn’t be worse. Mayor Bass’s proposed budget already seeks to eliminate 53 zoo positions—near;y 20% of the workforce—along with a $500,000 reduction in part-time staffing. Yet instead of building bridges with the philanthropic community that has sustained the zoo for decades, leadership has burned them down.
The zoo’s current predicament reflects broader municipal dysfunction. Los Angeles has proven itself lacking the institutional capacity to effectively manage world-class cultural assets. The zoo requires specialized expertise in animal care, conservation science, education, and visitor experience—competencies that extend far beyond typical city department management. Yet the city continues to treat the zoo as just another municipal function rather than the complex educational and conservation institution it must be to compete globally.
The recent $5 admission fee increase represents a band-aid solution to a hemorrhaging wound. As families struggle with higher costs, the underlying zoo problems of inadequate staffing, aging infrastructure, and poor strategic planning remain unaddressed. This approach penalizes visitors while failing to solve the fundamental governance crisis.
Los Angeles aspires to be a world-class city, yet our zoo falls far short of institutions in San Diego, San Francisco, or even smaller cities that have successfully maintained productive nonprofit partnerships. The San Diego Zoo thrives precisely because it operates with the flexibility and expertise that comes from effective public-private collaboration—something LA’s dysfunctional governance structure seems incapable of sustaining.
As Los Angeles prepares for its “close up” with the 2026 World Cup, 2027 NFL Superbowl and 2028 Olympics quickly approaching, the LA’s zoo is woefully ill-prepared to be a showcase. GLAZA brought decades of fundraising expertise, donor relationships, and institutional knowledge to the table. Losing this partnership doesn’t just cost money—it represents a catastrophic loss of institutional capacity that took generations to build. No municipal department can replace the specialized knowledge and community connections that nonprofit partners provide.
The current crisis demands more than cosmetic changes. It requires acknowledging that Director Verret has failed at her core mission to maintain the partnerships essential to the zoo’s success and maintain a world class institution worth visiting. The 2018 Controller’s audit provided a roadmap for improvement that was largely ignored. The cost of that negligence is now clear.
Los Angeles must decide whether it wants a world-class zoo or a municipal petting zoo. If the former, it needs competent leadership capable of building rather than burning bridges with the philanthropic community. It needs governance structures that recognize the unique requirements of cultural and educational institutions. Most importantly, it needs to acknowledge that managing a zoo requires expertise the city simply doesn’t possess in-house.
The dissolution of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association partnership represents more than a financial loss—it’s a symbol of institutional failure that will take years to recover from, if recovery is even possible. Los Angeles deserves better, and so do the millions of visitors, many of whom are school age kids of color, who depend on the zoo for education, conservation, and connection to the natural world.
The question now is whether city leadership has the courage to acknowledge these failures and chart a new course, or whether they’ll continue down the path of institutional decline that has become all too familiar for Los Angeles.
Michael Bustamante served as a Board Member of the Greater LA Zoo Association from 2017 to 2022. A native of Los Angeles, he resides with his family in Altadena.