Marti Townsend walks to work most days, a 30-minute trip from Makiki to her office on King Street that not only serves as good exercise but also keeps her connected to Honolulu’s cityscape at the street level. That’s important to her job as executive director of The Outdoor Circle, leading several thousand members who all are devoted to keeping Hawaii clean, green and beautiful.

Founded in 1912, the group is well known for planting and maintaining exceptional trees throughout the state and for ridding Hawaii of billboards in 1926 — a victory over visual blight the group is working hard to preserve in light of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s proposal to sell advertising on the exterior of city buses. Townsend notes that she also is an avid bus rider, like many OC members.

"Some people try to create the perception that you have to be either for Hawaii’s scenic environment or for TheBus, but that’s a false choice," she said. "We definitely support both."

Townsend, who grew up in Aiea and graduated from Moanalua High School in 1995, earned a bachelor’s degree in political philosophy from Boston University and later worked for two sessions as a budget analyst for the House Finance Committee in Hawaii’s Legislature. She also volunteered at The Outdoor Circle after college, which inspired her to become a lawyer; she focused on environmental law at the University of Hawaii.

Married and the mother of two young children, Townsend took the lead position at The Outdoor Circle in May 2012, after serving as the acting executive director of KAHEA-The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance. Heading any nonprofit means juggling many tasks. It’s no different at The Outdoor Circle, where Townsend oversees operations for 10 branches of the grass-roots group throughout the islands and takes the lead on statewide policy initiatives, fundraising and programs.

"Engaging people in the public process is a big part of what I do," she said. "We all appreciate Hawaii’s natural beauty and the public green spaces that add so much to our quality of life. It does take a community effort to preserve and enhance that."

QUESTION: What brought you to The Outdoor Circle?

ANSWER: I volunteered for The Outdoor Circle before I went to law school. I volunteered under Mary Steiner (who ran the group for 20 years) and I worked on my first environmental impact statement … Mary really inspired to take the career path that I have taken. 

Q: I know that The Outdoor Circle opposes the mayor’s plan to sell advertising on the outside of city buses. Can you tell us briefly where that issue stands now?

A: There actually will be a (City Council) budget committee hearing Friday (today) at 9 a.m. in the committee room where this bill will come up. … The Outdoor Circle is meeting with Council members and with constituents about our position, which is basically that Hawaii is too beautiful for bus billboards.

Every couple of years we come up to this question and every couple of years we turn it down. I’d like to note that the previous iterations of this proposal occurred when the financial situation of the city was far more dire than it is now. So we feel confident that the City Council will come to its senses and find a better way to help make the budget balance.

Q: This question basically comes from Michael Formby (director of the city’s Department of Transportation Services), from an op-ed piece he wrote in favor of the bus ads that we published. He wrote ‘that both Vermont and Maine have shown that it is possible to have exterior bus advertising while still outlawing billboards. What’s to say that the City and County of Honolulu cannot do the same thing?’ What’s The Outdoor Circle’s response to that?

A: We would note that both Maine and Vermont have state-level departments that are devoted to the administration of these outdoor advertisements. Hawaii does not have anything similar to that. And, actually, enforcement of our sign laws has been an ongoing problem, not only in Honolulu but for other Hawaii counties as well. So it’s really an unfair comparison between Maine and Hawaii or Vermont and Hawaii.

That said, the research that we’ve done has found that Maine actually has a problem with compliance on outdoor advertising because the bus billboards send a mixed message to motorists that mobile advertising is allowed, when actually it’s not. It’s only allowed on buses. So they spend considerable time and effort enforcing on motorists to control mobile advertising on other vehicles. The city needs to be prepared if they move forward with this proposal to have to involve that kind of enforcement. Given the way that current sign laws are enforced, it doesn’t appear that enforcement has been a priority for many administrations in Honolulu.

Q: That’s one thing that surprised me as I researched this issue. The importance of protecting Hawaii’s scenic beauty is enshrined in the state Constitution — it’s considered that high a priority — yet there is no enforcing agency that I could find at the city or state level. Am I missing something?

A: Part of the way the statute is written is that enforcement is done through litigation, so the city, the state or private individuals can bring suit in order to enforce sign codes. There is a section of the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting that is devoted to sign enforcement and it’s my understanding that they’ve recently brought on new staff, so we’re hopeful that enforcement of our current sign regulations will improve. But (the relative lack of enforcement) also is part of the reason The Outdoor Circle is advocating at the state Legislature for the establishment of an environmental court, in the hopes of creating more consistent enforcement of environmental laws in Honolulu and throughout the Hawaiian islands. …

Q: What do you mean by an environmental court?

A: Our proposal is in Senate Bill 632 and basically it establishes an environmental court similar to a family court or a drug court. The idea is that within each Circuit Court there would be one judge who is designated an expert in environmental law who would be the adjudicator of all environmental litigation in that circuit.

Q: So that would be broader than sign ordinances?

A: Oh, yes. There’s a wide gamut of environmental issues and this new organizational structure would allow the court to address them in a consistent way. The bill identifies all the statutes that would be in this jurisdiction — historic preservation, beautification issues, some public health; there’s a variety of statutes … This has been done in other states. We’ve been working closely with advocates from those communities to help guide us in this process of cultivating our own environmental court, which would help to put weight to our commitment to protecting Hawaii’s natural beauty.

Q: Returning to the bus ads for a moment: There’s a perception that there’s already rolling billboards, commercial vehicles carrying ads. What does the law actually allow now?

A: What is allowed is for a commercial vehicle to advertise its own business on the outside of its vehicle in the course of doing business. The example that’s often given is Love’s Bakery delivering bread all over the island and they can have a truck that says Love’s Bakery on it. Polynesian Cultural Tours — they pick up tourists in Waikiki and transport them to the Polynesian Cultural Center; they can advertise that their bus is carrying passengers for that purpose. What’s not allowed is third-party advertising on vehicles. So you couldn’t have a Coca-Cola truck, say, advertising Hawaiian Airlines.

What’s different here is that currently the ordinances for the city bus do not allow external advertising, so they’d be changing that ordinance. What they’re doing is interpreting the state statute in such a way that would allow third-party advertising. It all comes down to the use of the phrase "primarily used for." It’s legalese. They’re maneuvering to reinterpret the state statute in a way that opens up third-party advertising on vehicles. So what you see now on the trolleys, for example, is that the trolleys are owned or leased for a significant amount of time by the entities that are advertising on the outside of the trolleys. But what you could see if the city’s interpretation of the mobile advertising ban is allowed is that taxi cabs and other motor coaches would be able to advertise for anyone, for any entity, regardless of what they are transporting.

Q: Along with the city buses?

A: Yes.

Q: So we’re actually talking about ads on more than city buses? And the city could have competition for those ad dollars?

A: Definitely.

Q: The mayor said the city could raise up to $8 million with these ads. Do you think that’s a reasonable estimate?

A: No, especially if the city is talking about trying to limit the size and placement of the ads. The industry is pushing toward bus wraps and really sort of shocking ads on buses, and that’s more likely what would yield the higher dollar amount. A more realistic estimate would be in the $2 million range.

Q: Moving on to another subject: There is a lot of pressure on park facilities from the homeless population. Is that something The Outdoor Circle looks at or do you limit yourselves to the natural environment?

A: We recently had an annual meeting of the membership and strategized on what our priorities would be and it was unanimous that we want to focus on improvement of public green space, recognizing that our park services throughout the state are overburdened and we don’t have the finances in our government coffers to really provide for the kinds of services that we all have come to expect at our public parks. So The Outdoor Circle is committed to working with state and county officials to improve public green spaces, everything from the very small traffic-triangle types of situations to public parks that lots of people frequent.

Q: And these efforts are funded by donations and grants?

A: Yes.

Q: So is that part of your job too, raising money?

A: Yes. In fact, The Outdoor Circle started the Exceptional Tree Initiative and its purpose is to double down on our commitment to exceptional trees. A lot of the trees that were planted at the beginning of The Outdoor Circle in 1912 through the 1930s are now reaching their natural life expectancy and are needing to come down. We want to make sure that there are trees planted today for future generations to enjoy. A lot of these exceptional trees — large, canopy majestic trees — are found in public parks. So public parks are starting to lose trees. Unless there’s an advocate there to ensure that replacement trees are planted, we fear that the future might be even dimmer than it is now. So we’re committed to planting these trees as well as ensuring that our public green spaces are well maintained. It’s important to note here that this is not about sweeping out the homeless or walling off parts of our community. It’s about working together toward finding a collective solution to this problem. …

Q: So trees, parks, neighborhoods, buses, it’s all one big environment?

A: Right. As I mentioned, quite a few of the members of The Outdoor Circle are avid bus riders, myself included. Also some of The Outdoor Circle branches have really supported Complete Streets initiatives. That policy is around ensuring that our streets, sidewalks and crossings are accessible to all, and that means wheelchairs, bicycles, pedestrians.

The idea is that the street is for use by everyone, as opposed to just cars. We want our streets to be tree-lined and to have good sidewalks. So we’ve supported a lot of the stuff in Kakaako, for example, that’s focused around ensuring that Kakaako develops in a way that has sufficient, high-quality green space and streets that are hospitable. We don’t want the extremely large, high-volume vehicle streets that then are also very difficult for families to cross and just are not enjoyable to walk along. We want these neighborhoods to be livable.