SAVE THE DETROIT ZOO

With public outrage mounting over the possibility that the Detroit Zoo may shut down, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration resuscitated a plan to save it on Tuesday.

The plan is the same one voted down by the council 7-2 Saturday night. It would have allowed the Detroit Zoological Society to run the zoo, which the city says it can no longer afford. But administration officials are reintroducing it anyway, hoping that after three days of venom and blame tossed among public officials, City Council members might be more willing to approve it.

The administration is asking council members to suggest additional changes to the proposal so they can vote on it again today and save the beloved more than 75-year-old institution.

The zoo could close to the public in May without an agreement.

"We're working this thing aggressively so they understand what's at stake here," Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams said Tuesday. "It's not a question of a battle between the mayor and the council, it's bigger than that."

At an evening meeting at Detroit Youthville on Woodward and West Grand Boulevard, City Council members were on the defensive, explaining that the intent of their votes was not to shut down the zoo. Councilman Kwame Kenyatta said the agreement's language was wrong and the issue of contracts had to be addressed.

He envisions an agreement similar to the one that allows a private entity to run the Detroit Institute of Arts, he said.

"There's no one on council that I know of who wants the zoo to close," Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins said to the gathering of about 150 people, including many suburbanites.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said: "A terrible lie has gone around that the council voted to close the zoo. ... This is the same City Council that went to court to try to keep the Belle Isle Zoo open. ...We've been fighting to keep everything open. It's been closed by other parties."

As the evening wore on, most in the audience appeared convinced of the council's commitment to keep the zoo open. "I want to commend the council on its courageous stand," Samuel Black of Detroit said.

Tonyelle Russell of Detroit said, "We're really behind you, and we know everything is going to work out for the best."

The latest effort to save the zoo came on a heated day when the familiar racial rhetoric between Detroit's black elected leaders and the suburbs' white officials flared, while the council again defended its decision, angry residents filed petitions, hoisted signs and flooded the council with complaints, and state senators tried to reinstate $4 million in aid to the zoo.

Collins apologized for a weekend comment that the city is not a plantation that whites can run while Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson told the media that the council belongs in the zoo, not deciding its fate. He later said political criticism should not be interpreted as racist.

The comments helped fuel the outrage of residents from all over Michigan with wistful childhood memories of the zoo.

"It's everybody's zoo, Detroit, the suburbs, Windsor," said Redford Township resident Heather Pebbles, who visits the zoo at least twice a year with her three young sons.

She, like dozens of other residents, placed the blame squarely on the council. But some Detroit residents backed the council's decision.

Detroiter Joyce Heard said she is upset with suburban residents who trash the council but aren't helping to keep the zoo open. "It happens to us all the time. All they do is judge. ... Everybody in the state needs to help to keep it open."

Under the continued barrage from residents, six of the seven council members who voted against the plan held a news conference Tuesday morning to defend their actions.

They said they worried that the plan laid out additional costs for the city and took away the city's control of the zoo. The actual proposal calls for the society to run the zoo, which the city would still own.

At the same time, council members called on the suburbs to help financially support the zoo and blasted Patterson for his comments.

Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers said: "When Detroit is doing good, like the Super Bowl, everybody was rah, rah, rah. The minute that something happened that you don't agree with ... you want to put us in the zoo like monkeys. Well, we're not monkeys."

Patterson later defended his comments.

"I can criticize Granholm or Ficano, and it goes with the political territory," he said, referring to Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano. "But if you say anything about the City of Detroit leadership, you're automatically a racist."

He said it was a shame the council would rather close the zoo than turn over its operations.

Patterson said he would prefer to see the Huron-Clinton Metropark Authority take over the zoo, but "if the county did anything, we'd be viewed as part of a conspiracy to take over the assets of Detroit."

Meanwhile, legislators worked Tuesday to restore $4 million in state aid for the zoo.

Sen. Shirley Johnson, R-Troy, introduced the original bill, which was contingent on the city turning daily operations of the zoo over to the society. The onetime grant expired Saturday night. Johnson said she wants to reinstate the bill, which would require a new appropriation by the Legislature.

Contact MARISOL BELLO at 313-222-6678. Staff writers Chris Christoff, Cecil Angel, Kathleen Gray and Cecilia Oleck contributed to this report.