Editorial: How can the L.A. Zoo and its fundraising arm end their feud?

For six decades, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., known as GLAZA, has been the nonprofit fundraising arm of the Los Angeles Zoo.

Now it wants to break up with the zoo.

GLAZA, with its professional administrative staff and more than two dozen trustees drawn from business, philanthropy, the arts and other fields, has raised tens of millions over the years for the zoo. It also does marketing and oversees the extensive volunteer program.

The zoo, a city agency, is headed by a chief executive and director — currently Denise Verret — who answers to the mayor and the City Council.

There have been rifts before. GLAZA has walked away from contracts talks with the zoo before but eventually worked things out. GLAZA trustees often have strong ideas about how all those funds they worked hard to raise — and contributed themselves — should be used. And, of course, the chief executive of the zoo has specific ideas about how to run the zoo. Currently Verret is also serving as chair of the board of the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, the accrediting agency for zoos mostly in North America. No one in this mix is shy about expressing opinions.

But then the zoo, prompted by a desire for what it called more transparency and fairness, put out a request for proposals for the job (or rather, jobs, plural) that GLAZA had been doing. Essentially the zoo put GLAZA’s various roles out to bid — and encouraged GLAZA to compete for them.

That didn’t go over well. GLAZA officials, already upset by restrictions in its current agreement with the city, balked. In October, the chair of the trustees wrote a letter to Mayor Karen Bass telling her that GLAZA would not vie for a position and when its current agreement was up at the end of June 2025, so, too, would the partnership with the zoo end.

“Sending this letter to you brings us no joy,” wrote the chair, Erika Aronson Stern. She said the fact that the city decided to take all of GLAZA’s responsibilities for the last 60 years “and carve them into six, distinct separate categories is a very clear sign that the City has no interest in continuing our overarching partnership.”

Then GLAZA went rogue — or so the city basically contends in a breach-of-contract lawsuit it filed against GLAZA late last month.

GLAZA amended its articles of incorporation to allow it to distribute funds to “organizations other than the Zoo if GLAZA winds down or dissolves” even though GLAZA was only ever supposed to be raising funds for the L.A. Zoo, the lawsuit contends.

GLAZA has also refused to turn over donor information, the suit says. More alarming, according to the suit, is that GLAZA claimed in a letter to the zoo that it would control the endowment for which it raised funds even after it ended its agreement with the city next summer. The zoo estimates GLAZA has nearly $49 million under its control. Among other things, the city wants at least that much in damages.

And on top of all that, GLAZA “unilaterally” canceled the zoo’s signature annual fundraising gala, the Beastly Ball, for June 2025. The zoo says it expected to reap $975,000 from the event this year.

GLAZA says in response that there was little enthusiasm for it this year and that it wouldn’t be worth putting on the event.

Some of the concerns outlined in the city’s lawsuit were stated in a Nov. 8 letter from the city attorney’s office to the GLAZA chair. In a Dec. 6 letter, a lawyer for GLAZA responded that “it was with great sadness and surprise when GLAZA received the City’s November 8 letter accusing GLAZA of multiple acts of wrongdoing, including breach of fiduciary duty and financial misappropriation.”

Among other things, the association argues that it is keeping control of the restricted funds — that are donated for specific exhibits or projects — only to make sure they get used for the donors’ intended purposes. The lawyer also contends that GLAZA is an independent organization, “not a department of the City or under City management or control,” and that neither the city nor the zoo has control over the Endowment Fund. “Given the duties GLAZA owes to its donors, GLAZA will continue to manage the Endowment Fund,” the lawyer wrote.

OK, this is a fight between smart people who all care about the zoo. That’s understandable — to a point. But at the end of the day, the L.A. Zoo needs to be able to run the zoo as its managers see fit. This is a very challenging time for zoo managers in general and this one in particular. Parts of the zoo are outdated and need overhaul — which a new Vision Plan is designed to address. Additionally, the zoo is under attack by opponents of elephant-keeping. And the zoo will need to address that at some point. Maybe it’s time to stop keeping elephants in enclosures, given that in the wild they walk miles and miles each day.

The bottom line is that the zoo needs a dedicated and robust fundraising team for its future projects. And that team needs to be on board with what the zoo chief executive decides. For as long as they are in conflict, the zoo and the public are not being served.