The Fur May Fly as Council Acts in Zoo Dispute : Politics: Parks officials have decided to take greater control. Action has angered a private group that helps run the facility and raises millions of dollars.

Mention the Sumatran rhinoceros around the people who run the Los Angeles Zoo and their faces tighten with exasperation.

Huge, thick-skinned and nearly extinct, the three-toed mammal is the unlikely object of a bitter tug of war between the city parks department and the nonprofit group that helps operate the city-owned zoo.

City officials want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to help save the animal. The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. thinks the money can be better spent. Neither side will budge. Each thinks the other is being spiteful.

The rhinoceros war, the latest eruption in a series of internal controversies, has become the symbol of a decades-old dispute between the city and GLAZA over who should be in charge of the zoo.

Last week, city parks officials moved to solve such disputes by taking greater control over the support group and the millions of dollars it raises. The city wants to set its own agenda and priorities for the zoo, without having to share authority with GLAZA.

On Tuesday, the City Council will decide whether to intervene or let stand the sweeping changes imposed by the Recreation and Parks Commission over the protests of the GLAZA board.

If nothing is done to alter the situation, GLAZA members predict an exodus from the largely volunteer organization, and say the financial future of the zoo could be threatened.

The dispute comes as the city and GLAZA are completing a master plan for the troubled Griffith Park facility. Last year, zoo officials were embarrassed by disclosures that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had repeatedly cited the zoo for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

City officials acknowledge that they need GLAZA’s help to pay for the $175-million wish list drawn up to rejuvenate the 25-year-old zoo. They say they are counting on GLAZA to organize a major fund-raising campaign.

But GLAZA board members, stung by the city’s near-takeover of their organization, said they have little enthusiasm for raising money over which they will have little control.

“I’m really steamed,” said actress Betty White, a longtime GLAZA board member. “It’s some kind of a political ploy out of the mayor’s office. . . . They’re going to plow us right into the ground.”

White said she is not ready to resign, but added: “If it gets bad enough, I think the whole board will walk.”

Mayor Tom Bradley has strongly pushed the reorganization plan, saying it is important to streamline zoo management and solidify authority over funds and programs under one director.

City parks officials have complained that under the old structure the zoo was a “two-headed monster,” with GLAZA and its executive director controlling some key areas that should have been under the authority of the zoo director, a city employee.

James Hadaway, head of the Department of Recreation and Parks, said he is sorry that the city’s relationship with GLAZA has degenerated, but is adamant about imposing the changes.

“We just think the zoo should have one director,” he said. “There have been many frustrations down through the years.”

Hadaway said he does not “believe for a moment” that a reorganization will prompt GLAZA’s members to flee. “I believe we can go back to the table and work out something that would be agreeable to everybody.”

During a yearlong search for a new zoo director, city officials said, it became apparent that no one wanted the job unless the management structure was altered to give the director authority over all zoo operations. The officials said they want to make the changes before the January arrival of new director Mark Goldstein.

Under contracts that expire in 2005, GLAZA and the city are supposed to share responsibility for zoo operations. GLAZA officials have suggested that the changes may violate the contracts, but have not pressed the matter.

The contracts give the city control over day-to-day operations and animal care, while GLAZA operates the food and souvenir concessions, returning 10% of the gross revenue to the city.

GLAZA also operates a 500-member volunteer docent program. In addition, GLAZA has raised $27 million in donations for the facility over the last decade.

Under the new arrangement, GLAZA must pay the city $2 each time one of its 135,000 members enters the zoo. Previously, members were allowed unlimited free entrance in return for their annual GLAZA membership fee of $35 for individuals or $45 for families. The new charge would be levied on GLAZA, not individual members.

The changes also require the GLAZA board to report to the zoo director and give the city the right to audit GLAZA’s books. In addition, GLAZA will be charged $2 for each member of a tour group led by one of its volunteer docents. Previously, there was no charge.

Camron Cooper, chairwoman of the GLAZA board, last week called the changes a “power grab” by city officials who found a way to divert zoo donations to the city’s cash-poor general fund.

Gloria Stewart, a GLAZA board member for 24 years, said last week that she “wouldn’t even think of” soliciting donations as she has done in past years because she cannot assure people that the money will go to the zoo. The wife of actor Jimmy Stewart, she has helped bring in donations from the Hollywood community.

“My opinion is that the city is making a big mistake,” she said.

Some members of the 40-person GLAZA board said they have no interest in becoming simply a pipeline for money. To varying degrees, the board members have been involved in zoo decision-making, serving on committees that oversee education programs and construction projects.

Members include celebrities and corporate executives. Jeffrey S. Klein, president of the San Fernando Valley and Ventura editions of The Times, sits on the board.

The city takeover runs counter to a trend toward privatization of municipal zoos, said Steve Taylor, president of the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. “There are certainly more zoos going to private, nonprofit organizations than going the other way.”

There is no successful model for zoo structure, but one person must be in charge, he said.

In 1984, Los Angeles management auditors suggested that the city consider turning the zoo over to GLAZA, but that proposal was never pursued. Last week, in a new report, the auditors endorsed the parks commission’s actions, saying that they were necessary to end years of management confusion and feuding.