How Zoo Director's Decision To End Low Income Discount Affected One Family Today

This comment came in this afternoon for a post from January titled, Director Ends Zoo's Participation In Program For Low Income Visitors.  

For those who didn't see that post, or are not familiar with the Museums For All program, I've linked the original post at the bottom.  

In short, the Zoo participated in the program, which allows Low Income people who get SNAP benefits, to show their EBT card for a discounted admission of $3.00.  Additionally last summer, a discount of 50% off Memberships was added. Director Tanya Peterson ended the Zoo's participation in the day use tickets, just before the holidays last fall, and then cut the membership offer in January.

In my opinion, ending this program shows that the Zoo is not inclusive to all income levels. 

Those within SF Rec and Park Dept, the same department as the Zoo, that participate in the program are, California Academy of Sciences, DeYoung Museum, SF Conservatory of Flowers, and Japanese Tea Garden.  Other area attractions including, Aquarium of the Bay, Exploration, Disney Museum, and Oakland Zoo, also choose to participate.  

Director Peterson's choice to not have the Zoo participate in this valuable program, is disturbing.

I know how this affects people financially in regards to whether they can or can't afford to visit Our Zoo, but hearing this Mother's experience in real time and how it affected her kids is sad. This shouldn't happen. ... I'm also curious if she still had to pay for parking.

This really bothered me.  Our Zoo should treat people better. I'm not talking about the point of sale staff, I'm talking about Director Tanya Peterson.  And, I know first-hand how shitty she is to people.

In my last post, I documented information regarding Panda funding.  In a Dec 2024 Chronicle article, Peterson named The San Francisco Community Investment Fund, as one of two entities contributing to Pandas.  I was not familiar with SFCIF, so I took a look at their website.  This was the lead-in sentence, in their What We Do- Who We Serve section...

"SFCIF uses federal New Markets Tax Credits to invest in nonprofits, businesses and organizations that deliver significant benefits for low-income communities and residents in San Francisco."

Considering the choice to opt-out of Museums For All, I had to wonder how the Zoo qualified. I emailed the Fund and asked, as Peterson was quoted saying $15 Million was coming from this Fund. They responded, "SFCIF has not provided any confirmation of funding to the Zoo."   So, that is just another untruth from her mouth.

There are too many things not right with management under Director Peterson.  I truly believe under her continued mismanagement, Our Zoo may not see it's 100th Anniversary in 2029.

Related Post:

https://iamnotananteater.blogspot.com/2025/01/director-ends-zoos-participation-in.html

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For Full Statement see this post:

https://iamnotananteater.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-zoo-status.html

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