Topeka ? Its name once described it as “world famous,” but Topeka’s zoo has had three directors in seven years, and the number of annual visitors peaked more than a decade ago.

Now a new city report questions whether the zoo has enough money and calls on a nonprofit group to provide more help.

But Director Mike Coker believes the zoo’s biggest problem is negative publicity from changes in its management.

“People just need to get out and see what we’ve done,” Coker told The Topeka Capital-Journal. “We take pride in what we’re doing, and we don’t have anything to hide.”

The zoo opened in 1933 as the city’s biggest park. Attendance last year was 182,500, well short of the peak year, 1991, when attendance was almost 289,000.

Christine Versluys, a mother of three, said her family visits the zoo regularly and she thinks officials are trying hard to maintain the zoo.

“The landscape is beautiful,” she said. “They’ve done a lot in the last few years.”

Director Mike LaRue resigned in August 1998, citing personal reasons, though his departure followed an investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture into allegations of shortcomings lodged by former zoo employees.

LaRue’s replacement, David Mask, stayed in the job only two years. In 2001, the zoo lost its accreditation from the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. and wasn’t reaccredited for nearly two years.

The latest report on the zoo, issued last week by a nine-member citizens’ committee, called financial support from Friends of the Topeka Zoo “inadequate.”

The report recommends that the group provide at least $1 million for improvements each year, pay 6 percent of gift shop gross receipts to the zoo and operate its concessions.

“The contract is totally beneficial to Friends of the Zoo and not to the zoo,” said Joseph Ledbetter, the committee’s secretary. “I want Friends of the Zoo to be helpful and not hoard their money.”

The committee said the group had $700,000 in cash reserves as of December 2004.

But Friends President Vicki Estes said operating any charitable organization without cash reserves is fiscally unsound. Also, she said, the group contributed $250,000 toward the construction of an education center and has provided more than $10,000 for continuing education for zoo staff.

Coker said the group also funded a television commercial this year.

“They have been supportive when we asked for funding,” he said. “Funding is adequate.”