There’s no denying that a plan approved last week by the Des Moines City Council to privatize the Blank Park Zoo could potentially hurt other cultural attractions and programs. It provides the zoo with a $125,000 cushion over the next two years, money that would come from the Des Moines Art Center, the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, the Science Center of Iowa and the Sister Cities Commission. The plan hurts the zoo as well, which will receive $230,000 less in city funding, while at the same time agreeing to spend $500,000 to maintain the zoo’s Discovery Center.

This is one of those cases where there are no clear winners, but multiple losers. The city has far bigger problems to wrestle with than how to divvy up money from the county’s hotel/motel tax in a way that keeps representatives and supporters of all the cultural attractions happy.

City officials were inking the final deal on zoo privatization when they learned they would face a financial hit of at least $4.6 million, Des Moines’ share of the $71 million reduction in state aid to local governments approved by the Legislature in the “reinvent government” bill. It isn’t as if city leaders are flush with options after having already whittled the fiscal 2004 budget to a twig. They’re considering four-day workweeks, closing some branch facilities, layoffs and other cost-cutting measures just to stay afloat.

Des Moines isn’t alone in its pain; cities throughout the metro area and state are feeling it, too. Lawmakers have sent a clear signal that government must become smarter, more efficient and leaner; unspoken but implied is that keeping the zoo, Civic Center, Art Center, Sister Cities Commission and other cultural attractions vital hinges on the tenuous string of cooperation among governments.

If ever there was an argument for regional services, this is it. Central Iowa is the only area of the state without a regional council of governments. The closest thing to it in this area is the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a good example of what can be accomplished in terms of highway infrastructure and land-use policies when governments work together rather than against one another. It’s time to take that cooperation a step further to protect the quality-of-life amenities that make the metropolitan area attractive and give Des Moines the financial help it needs to maintain them.

We like to talk about regionalism, about how individual entities become stronger when they hold hands. But talk is just that. It’s time for action.