Lowry Park CEO Lex Salisbury is taking hits from all sides. And he's hanging onto his job by a mere thread. One that may be cut on Thursday when he stands in front of the Lowry Park Zoo board to answer several questions related to his dealings between the zoo, his for-profit venture Safari Wild and his private game ranch in Dade City.
Already this month, Salisbury has been the target of fines from SWFTMUD regarding environmental violations on Safari Wild property, a lien from an electric company for the property, a suspension by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and now a very negative city audit.
I won't go into all the audit details here (you can read it on the city's website), but there is one aspect of the city's investigation that caught my eye:
Many of the interviews with Zoo staff, supervisors, and senior management disclosed issues
of abuse and potential illegal acts, but none were officially reported or investigated. Many of
the personnel interviewed disclosed their fears of retaliation for reporting instances of fraud
and abuse to senior management because of the culture maintained by the Zoo’s President.
Salisbury's response? He doesn't know who those employees are.
[Reporter slaps forehead]
Well, of course, he doesn't know who the employees are — they're afraid to talk!
However, Salisbury does know some former employees that voiced the same concerns. All the way back in 2006, I reported on the zoo's work environment:
Despite what they characterize as a hazardous working environment and objections by fellow zookeepers, Czarnik and Peterson say their fellow employees dared not speak up for fear of being fired or labeled an "animal activist."
"I knew for putting myself out there for animals, I would be on the block," [Brian] Czarnik says.
And later in the piece, another employee reiterated the issue:
Former employees say current zookeepers cannot speak for fear of losing their jobs. "We all knew if you say something and have an opinion, you're gone," says Nicole Myers, a former zookeeper who resigned in April after two years in the aviary department. "You know that from the first month."
While reporting on that piece, I attempted to interview board members and city officials. Read about the culture of indifference city officials seemed to have back then:
City officials say they have a limited role in the zoo's practices, despite the fact that they occupy four seats on the nonprofit's board, and that the City of Tampa, which owns the land the zoo sits upon, provides the nonprofit thousands of dollars a year ($500,000 for FY 2006 alone). On Sept. 7, Tampa city attorney David Smith told the Tampa City Council that the city has little control over the zoo's operations, hiring or training. It is a position shared by some council members.
"We do have a lot of faith in the administration over there," says Councilwoman Mary Alvarez, who says she hasn't heard any of the former employees' complaints.
She says the nonprofit board makes most of the decisions regarding the zoo. Mayor Pam Iorio, Councilman Shawn Harrison, Parks and Recreation Director Karen Palus and Neighborhoods Coordinator Santiago Corrada sit on that board, along with other community and business leaders.
Board member Corrada says the city received some anonymous allegations after the tiger's death, but he had not heard the specific complaints CL obtained.
"I'd not heard any of these at any of the board meetings I had attended," he says.
Corrada says as a board member he was free to ask questions of the zoo's administration, but he was unsure of how much oversight the city possessed over the zoo.
Oh, how times have changed.
The city's audit is 60 pages and there's a wealth of information. Something tells me new revelations are far from over.
And to think, this all started with a group of monkeys …
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2008.