Night Of The Living Zoo

Today, Mary Seamen wrote a Letter to the Editor in the Daily Times once again stating it was yet ANOTHER record year. Congratulations, seriously!

This time around, let's hope she's right. You see, for years now, Jim Rapp has stated to the Press that it was a record year, yet the dollars in the end never represented such, just look at their financial statements.

I'm all for the Zoo doing well at ANY time. However, when they take LOCAL money and use it JUST LIKE TERRORISTS DO by raising it in our Country and then sending it off to a Third World Country, this is what kills America. 50% of the money raised there is used for conservation. The Zoo Commission ruled at one point that 10% of that had to stay in Maryland and the rest could be sent out of the Country.

I don't care if 10% went out of the Country, SALISBURY and especially the Salisbury Zoo needs that money! They are burdening the taxpayers $1,200,000.00 a year and that does NOT include money raised from fundraisers such as The Night Of The Living Zoo!

Perhaps the Zoo Commission can sit back and re-think their goals with such said funds and HELP THE TAXPAYERS out this year instead?

Oh, as for the negative comments in the Grapevine, not everything negative comes from Joe Albero, so you know. I would hope by now everyone would come to realize that if "I" have something to say, I say it here and if not here I'll write a Letter to the Editor myself and put my name on it. The Zoo needs to face the fact that there are far more people who do not agree with their management skills and decisions than those hand full that only come out of the wood work when there's a major dilemma.

Getting back to the success. Over the past two or three years, Rapp mentioned how they raised $40,000.00+ from this event. Each year $10,000.00 of that money mysteriously disappeared from the thin air and their financials only showed they took in $30,000.00, (or so). Do NOT come back here and comment stating that $10,000.00 went to props and candy because the money completely disappeared, according to Rapp's figures and statements. Each year they tried to claim it went into candy and so forth but the reality is, you can't spend $10,000.00 on candy for this event, sorry, nice try. For those of you who have been attending these events for years, you'll realize very quickly that the props are pretty much the same each year. The few that change are usually made in house by the Zookeepers and they are very inexpensive. This year I will personally be asking for their minutes and financial statements as I am VERY curious to see if all $40,000.00+ actually shows up on the books for once? Wouldn't that be quite interesting if it did?