SLO Botanical Garden suddenly cuts its executive director 

After relocating from Singapore just shy of two years ago to be the executive director of the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden, Mike Bush announced in a surprise e-mail April 10 that his job had vanished.

“Yesterday afternoon in a cost-cutting decision, the Board informed me that my position has been eliminated,” Bush wrote. “My last day is today. I’ll be leaving mid-afternoon.”

Bush declined an opportunity to provide New Times with further comment on his departure, as did the remaining garden staff. The president of the garden’s board of directors, Ke Ping Tsao, issued only a prepared statement, claiming that the decision was necessary to ensure the garden’s future growth and refocus resources on hardscape and Fire Safe garden projects.

“We want to sincerely thank Mike Bush for the time he spent here and the talents he brought to the organization,” Tsao wrote. “We sincerely wish him, and his wife Jeanne, all the best in their next endeavors.”

The most current financial information available on the nonprofit that runs the garden is from 2010. For that year, revenues were listed at $431,674 and expenses came in at $308,374.