The 9th Circuit ruled on February 18, 2014 that the EIS for the Honolulu Rail Project is not incomplete, despite the lack of equally in-depth analysis of alternatives to the elevated train, including Bus Rapid Transit. Judge Tashima, at the lower federal court, also determined that the City and the Federal Transit Authority properly analyzed the alternative routes for the rail system, including whether to locate a tunnel under Beretania Street. In light of the courts’ decisions, we are assessing the next best steps. We need to continue to engage with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) to ensure that all of the mitigations promised in the EIS are actually implemented -- that trees affected by the rail project are relocated or re-purposed and replaced, that transit stations are well-designed and landscaped to integrate into their surrounding communities. If you are interested in helping to minimize the negative impacts of rail, please drop us a line to volunteer. Learn more about this issue, here is a link to the Star-Advertiser news article. (Image: From the Star Advertiser, Gordon Pang) Watch for your membership renewal postcard in the mail! The Outdoor Circle will be mailing membership renewals for all members in the beginning of April. To be efficient, we encourage you to submit your membership form and annual dues online by clicking here. This not only saves our trees, but reduces the costs of printing, postage, and data entry. Renew by June 1, 2014 to ensure you are on the list to receive important updates, including an invitation to our Annual Meeting and election of officers to be held in August and our next convention of members, "The Full Circle." If you have renewed your membership since the Fall, then your membership is current and you will not be receiving a postcard in the mail. Your membership will be up for renewal on June 1, 2015. If you mail in your membership dues to the office (1314 S. King St. #306 Honolulu 96822), then please be sure to include a note indicating the branches you would like to join and your email address. Click here to download a membership form. If you have any questions about the membership renewal process, call the office at 808-593-0300. This is also a great time to help new members join The Circle. Ask your friends and family if they appreciate the natural beauty of Hawaii -- and if they do, then they should help support The Circle's work by becoming a member. The Nominating Committee of The Outdoor Circle is seeking applications from those interested in serving on the Board of Directors. If you are interested, please send your resume and a cover letter explaining why you are interested in serving on the Board to mail(at)outdoorcircle.org by March 1, 2014. Board members serve an annual term from September 1st – August 31st. The Board of Directors is responsible for guiding the organization, including: setting policies, providing fiscal and managerial oversight, fundraising, and other related responsibilities. The Board is especially interested in members from the neighbor islands and those with professional experience in public relations, arborculture, and finance.
If you would like to get more involved, but are not sure about joining the Board just yet, then consider joining a committee. The Outdoor Circle Board relies on the work of our many volunteer committees to accomplish our mission, including: Public Affairs — directing TOC’s attention on legislative matters and county issues with statewide implications for keeping Hawai‘i clean, green, and beautiful. Education — implementing TOC’s goal of educating children and adults to appreciate the value of trees in our communities and natural ecosystems. Tree planting and beautification — implementing TOC’s goals of planting trees and landscaping for the improvement of public greenspaces throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Signs — defending TOC’s 100-year-old victory against billboards by ensuring sign regulations are enforced. Congratulations to the founding members of the newest edition to The Outdoor Circle! The Manoa branch of The Outdoor Circle was chartered last night at 6:30 pm at the home of Dr. Jeremy Lam in Manoa. Despite the rainy weather, more than 25 people attended the charter meeting on Jerry’s lanai. The short business meeting was followed by festive conversation about beautification projects, political intrigue, and exceptional trees. We shared in homemade gau, curry egg salad and ham sandwiches to celebrate. The founding board members are: Jeremy Lam, President Mike McFarlane, Vice President Karin Ingersoll, Secretary Diane Choy, Treasurer If you are interested in joining the Manoa branch of The Outdoor Circle, just click on our membership page here or call us 593-0300. Current members can join the new branch at no additional cost. New members are asked to pay $25 in annual dues. Members of the North Shore Outdoor Circle have had it with the proliferation of illegal signs in their community. They are banning together with members from the four other O’ahu branches to stamp out this visual blight. This is not the first time, TOC member have taken on illegal signs with great success. But this time they have a new secret weapon: a smartphone app called “See, Click, Fix.” “See, Click, Fix” is a free application available on most smartphones that allows citizens to easily report problems to the county. The program automatically routes the reports to the proper agency. Your report can include images, the specific location, and a detailed description of the problem. Reports can be tracked on the SeeClickFix website, including when reported problems are resolved by the proper authorities. TOC members are encouraged to install this app on their smartphones and start reporting illegal signs, dumping, water-wasting, trees in need, and any other matter that needs the county’s attention to the proper authorities. Be sure to mention that you are member of The Outdoor Circle in your reports. Thanks to a major turn-out from all four TOC branches on O‘ahu, Mayor Caldwell’s proposal to sell advertising on the outside of city buses was deferred by the Budget Committee. Congratulations on a job well done! This may, however, be only a temporary reprieve from the blight of bus billboards. We need to be prepared that Bill 69 might come before this Committee again in March. In preparation for that, we should: 1. Celebrate our victory! Thank you to everyone who gave so much of their time and resources to make this campaign a success. Thank you to Kathy for chairing the working group, Martin for all of the advice and the very effective signs at the hearing, Barbara, Jeremy, Linda, John, Susan, Martin, and Kathy for meeting with Council members, Susan and Jeremy for the petition, Diane and Steve for reaching out to our allies, Leigh for contacting our Neighborhood Boards, to the 20+ people who testified in opposition to the bill today, and to all of the many wonderful letters to the editor that were submitted over the last month. All that work culminated in this victory. Mahalo nui loa! 2. Thank the Budget Committee & Council Chair Please take a moment to draft a short thank you note to the members of the budget committee that supported us and especially Council Chair Ernie Martin. Below is a list of how the committee members voted. Here are their email addresses: akobayashi@honolulu.gov, cafukunaga@honolulu.gov, jmanahan@honolulu.gov, kmpine@honolulu.gov, emartin@honolulu.gov Chair Martin did not have to attend this committee meeting and speak so eloquently on the challenges with the city budget and against the passage of Bill 69. But he did and we are very grateful. 3. Continue to build our movement We have to assume for now that Bill 69 will come up again during the March budget discussions. To be ready for that, it would be good to continue to meet with Council members, Neighborhood Boards, and other supportive groups, and continue to collect petition signatures. Please reply to this email if you are interested in joining the working group in this effort. ———————————————————-- How the Committee voted on the motion to defer Bill 69: Chair Ann Kobayashi (Manoa): YES. Vice Chair Stanley Chang (East Honolulu): NO. CM Carol Fukunaga (Makiki, Downtown) YES. CM Joey Manahan (Kalihi) YES. CM Kymberly Marcos Pine (Ewa, Waianae) YES with serious reservations. Council Chair Ernie Martin (North Shore) is not on this committee, so could not vote on the motion, but he urged the committee to “shelve” the bill, and if not at least defer the bill until after the Mayor’s budget is released. He asked excellent questions of the administration. ____________________________________ Background Information Honolulu City Mayor Kirk Caldwell is seeking authority to sell external advertising space on city buses to reduce the City’s current budget deficit. The Outdoor Circle, Hawai‘i’s oldest, environmental advocate and champion of the 1927 ban on billboards, has long opposed outdoor advertising because it undermines the scenic beauty of our islands. Like the City, The Outdoor Circle is also very concerned about the City’s longstanding budget shortfall. Honolulu’s parks and trees already suffer from insufficient funding and would likely be early victims in the next round of budget cuts. Many Circle members are also avid bus-riders, who want to see improved and expanded bus service. Yet, members of the Circle found the Mayor’s proposal to be dubious and dangerous because it could significantly weaken current controls on outdoor advertising and not balance the city’s budget. The city’s budget shortfall now stands at $156 million. Advertising on the outside of buses is expected to raise $8 million at best, and more likely would raise only $2 million a year. As such, this proposal would soil Honolulu’s scenic beauty and we would still be forced to cut funding to public parks and other essential public services. Residents and visitors already suffer with the lack of enforcement on stationary sign violations and convoluted applications of the current mobile advertising ban. With outdoor advertising on city buses, it would be a short trip to seeing signs on bus shelters, transit stations, and future rail cars. Circle members appreciate Mayor Caldwell’s attempts to address these concerns, but his efforts fall short. He cannot promise that the content of the advertising would not be offensive, as constitutional protections guarantee equal access to any form open for public use. Hawai‘i is special. We want to protect its largest city from turning into just another metropolis, where one cannot blink without being inundated with commercial advertising. The Outdoor Circle looks forward to working with Mayor Caldwell and his administration to find workable solutions to the City’s budget challenges, but cannot support advertising on the exterior of city buses. Related Links: Hawaii News Now: Proposal would put ads on City buses KHON: Mayor wants buses turned into rolling billboards KITV: Mayor: Bus Ads Ticket to Restore Routes, Services PBN: Honolulu mayor proposes adding advertising to the sides of buses Star-Advertiser: Exterior ads could earn $8 million Establishing an Environmental Court in Hawaii to improve enforcement of current environmental laws is a top priority for the members of The Outdoor Circle. Today, SB632, one of the bills proposing to do just that, is working its way through the state legislative process -- this is the farthest this bill has ever gotten! Now is our chance to demonstrate to legislators the vast public support for improving environmental protection in Hawaii with this important tool. This bill has made its way through a gauntlet of committee hearings at the Hawaii State Legislature and is in a good position to be passed by legislators this session. You can help make it happen by submitting testimony in support of SB632 to the Senators and Representatives of the Hawaii State Legislature today. Below you will find a sample testimony that you can make your own and email addresses for all state elected officials. People power works! After years of lagging before the state Legislature in various forms, the Environmental Court concept is finally getting heard. Thanks to the combined efforts of The Outdoor Circle, Keep the Hawaiian Islands Beautiful, students at UH's Richardson School of Law, and many concerned residents throughout Hawaii and abroad. Good work everyone! But we still have another lap to go -- we can't let up on the pressure yet. Please forward this post to your family, friends, and co-workers. We all benefit from a clearer, more healthy environment. SB 632 will help make that happen! Post it on Facebook, send it out on twitter (#EcoCourt), call your neighbors, do whatever you can to help grow this movement and pass SB 632. Sample Testimony (modify this to make it unique and more effective) Aloha Senators and Representatives, Thank you for this opportunity to testify in strong support of SB 632 to establish an Environmental Court in the State of Hawaii. As a society, we in Hawaii value our natural environment above most other things. We enshrined in our constitution that all residents have a right to a "clean and healthful environment." We departments at the state and county levels entrusted with protecting our natural resources for use now and forever into the future. Yet, enforcement against violations of our environmental laws is often inconsistent between courts. This fosters confusion, undermines compliance, and fuels further litigation. Environmental statutes and regulations are sometimes very technical and require considerable study before judges are equipped to rule in these cases. Establishing a section of our state court system to adjudicate violations of our environmental laws will help to improve enforcement of these laws. Improved enforcement will lead to reliability in the interpretation of and better compliance with environmental laws. This will mean a clearer environment and better public health for all residents of Hawaii. This is why I urge you to pass SB 632. Thank you, First and Last Name City, State Send Your Testimony Send your email to all Senators and all Representatives in the State Legislature by addressing your email to: sens@hawaii.capitol.gov, reps@hawaii.capitol.gov To learn about the international movement to establish Environmental Courts, visit to European Union Forum of Judges for the Environment at www.eufje.org. Check out their thorough report on the topic, called: "Greening Justice". The Waimea Branch is pleased with its newest addition to Ulu La`au the Waimea Nature Park, a concrete classroom-like structure that will provide community members with a durable and comfortable workstation for conducting classes, demonstrations and workshops. Over the past years of Ulu La`au’s existence, there have been many groups that utilize the park with no usable facility to accommodate them. With the “educational unit”, we now have the ability to seat up to thirty individuals and provide a space for a teacher, or demonstrator to address the group. Funding for this project was provided by Hawaii Community Foundation’s Ho`ohui `O Waimea Grant. All of the labor for this project was donated. Thank you to everyone who supported this effort. While we continue to use the workstation in its current open-air condition, it is obvious that the space would be more functional with some protection from the sun and rain. Waimea Outdoor Circle’s next step is to secure funding for the design and construction of a permanent roof over the tables and benches. Winter is made more brilliant in Hawai’i with the fruiting citrus trees and blooming Hong Kong Orchid trees. These kinds of shade trees provide protective canopies that play many roles in managing a healthy ecosystem. Many of the giant canopy trees seen around the islands, and now deemed Exceptional Tree status, were planted by the founders of The Outdoor Circle. Across the state, a good number of these exceptional trees have reached the end of their life cycle. The Outdoor Circle is committed to a state-wide Exceptional Tree Initiative, endorsed by our Governor and First Lady, both long-time members of The Outdoor Circle. This plan of action includes community members who steward the parks and other public areas where the legacy trees are planted. They will have our help in replacing their neighborhood trees with large canopied trees.A large canopy tree is definitive of the structure of The Outdoor Circle. Ten branches state-wide make a healthy canopy under which our organization fulfills our mission. We start the New Year by welcoming our 10th branch in West Honolulu, seated in the verdant hills of Manoa. We look toward to Kapolei district to follow in these footsteps, and seeds have been planted for a new branch on the Big Island. Our Administrative Board of Directors joins with me in thanking all of you who continue to keep the” clean, green and beautiful” legacy alive. We look forward to many opportunities to preserve and protect our environment during 2014. Our statewide Legislative Agenda is posted in this newsletter, a broad three-pronged action plan which was developed statewide during our Full Circle Meeting. We ask you to join us in being an active steward for The Outdoor Circle. Here’s what you can ask of your friends and neighbors: Become a member, volunteer some time, and make visits to our website and fb page to catch up on our actions. Alexandra Avery President of The Outdoor Circle Working to keep Hawai`i clean, green, and beautiful since 1912 (Image: Hong Kong Orchid by Petter Johansen) The USDA is seeking our help to eradicate the Rhinoceros Beetle in Hawai’i. This ugly bug burrows into the crowns of coconut and other palms to feed on sap. In the process, they kill the palms. They have voracious appetites, travel easily from tree-to-tree by flying, and can reproduce quickly. The Rhino beetle is larger than normal bugs in Hawaii with a dark brown shell and a single horn on its head. It lays eggs in compost or rotting coconut leaves. Infected trees will display a distinctive V-shaped cut in the stem of leaves. If you think you have found a rhino bug, do not move the potentially infested material. Instead immediately call the State Pest Hotline at 808-643-7378. JoAnn Bettinger Best, 84, of Kailua died December 14, 2013 in Honolulu after returning from a visit to see family on the East Coast. Born in New Albany, Indiana, Jo retired from the Central Intelligence Agency before teaching at St. Anthony’s School in Kailua and committing 20 years of her life to The Outdoor Circle. She served as President of the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle (1997-1998) and The Outdoor Circle (2000-2002). Always quick to smile, Jo will be remember for her sharp wit, generous heart, and strong commitment to her community. Jo is survived by her daughters Amy B. Crews and Elisa Vollert and son Christopher W. Best, sister Craig Boultinghouse, 5 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. A private celebration of her life and scattering of ashes will be held in February. The family asks that any contributions made in memory of Jo be given to The Outdoor Circle in support of tree planting and preservation efforts throughout the islands. |
Welina!The Greenleaf is the online newsletter and blog of The Outdoor Circle. Here you will find updates on the projects and accomplishments of our many branches throughout the state, as well as programs with statewide impact. Archives
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