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Comm Zoo director details 20-year expansion plan, petition drive for 1/8 of 1% sales tax
Summary
Meg Maitland, senior director of the zoo referred to in the record as “Comm,” presented a decades-long master plan to expand the facility onto adjacent acreage and said petitioners are collecting signatures to test interest in placing a 1/8 of 1% county sales tax on the 2026 ballot to fund the work.
Meg Maitland, senior director of the facility referred to in the record as “Comm” Zoo, told the Taft City Council on March 17 that the zoo intends to expand from roughly 14 established acres onto an adjacent 40-acre parcel and build new visitor and conservation infrastructure.
Maitland said the plan, developed through a recent master plan process, would add an entry plaza with a dedicated education entrance for school groups, an expanded wildlife rehabilitation center, intern housing, renovated legacy habitats, and larger exhibit areas including rotating "flex" habitats for bears and upgraded aviaries for California condors. She described a proposed 16,000-square-foot event pavilion, a botanical garden, farm zone and a northern meadow habitat that would display tule elk, bison and pronghorn.
"My name is Meg Maitland. I am the senior director of Comm Zoo," Maitland said, describing the zoo’s history and mission and noting that the institution currently serves about 25,000 students and roughly 100,000 guests annually. She said many of the animals are native and that the zoo operates a wildlife-rehabilitation program focused on returning animals to native habitat when feasible.
Maitland told the council the full implementation would likely take up to about 20 years depending on funding and regulatory steps, and she outlined a funding strategy modeled on another county’s small dedicated sales tax. Based on community polling by FM3 cited in the presentation, she said the zoo had roughly 70% approval in Kern County and that the organization is circulating petitions to determine whether there is appetite to place "a 1/8 of 1% sales tax" on the 2026 ballot. (A 1/8 of 1% is 0.125%.)
She estimated the build-out could generate about 195 full-time-equivalent jobs over time and projected the tax could produce roughly $171 million over 20 years if placed on the ballot and approved, while keeping regular admission rates low and preserving veteran/child discounts.
Council members asked about accessibility across the larger site, including trams or electric carts for older visitors and wider paths; Maitland said design plans include wider pathways and the capability to operate trams where needed. She also confirmed current staffing of about 25 full-time and 45 part-time employees and said the expansion would support significant additional operations, education programming and intern housing to support the rehabilitation mission.
The presentation closed with an invitation for residents to sign petitions if they are registered voters and to support the zoo through visits, memberships and volunteering. The council did not take formal action on the proposal; Maitland’s remarks were presented for council information and public awareness.
