Public opposition and unanswered questions are the key reasons the City Council Budget Committee has decided to hold off voting on Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s plan to allow advertising on the sides of city buses.
Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said Friday it’s likely she and her colleagues will decide whether to take up the issue again in March after the Caldwell administration submits its budget to the Council.
"We’re putting it in our toolbox so that after seeing the mayor’s budget, we can see how we can raise other revenues," Kobayashi said. "And if not, well, we’ll go with the advertising on buses. But it’s the last thing we want to do."
Members of The Outdoor Circle, which has led the opposition to Bill 69, were ecstatic. A Caldwell spokesman, meanwhile, said the deferral means that the mayor’s plans to restore lost bus service and institute a new route will now have to wait.
Caldwell officials said the proposal would garner as much as $8 million annually for the cash-strapped city.
But the main goal of the proposal has always been "transportation equity," city Department of Transportation Services Director Michael Formby said.
"Advertising, as a sustainable revenue source, was a means to the end," Formby said, noting that Oahu residents have been clamoring for more bus service since operations were cut by former Mayor Peter Carlisle in 2012.
Caldwell instructed his staff not to increase fares to provide the added service, but to find other sources of revenue, Formby said.
"The key to me is that this is a sustainable revenue source, meaning if it’s $6 million the first year, over 10 years that’s $60 million," he said.
Despite what critics have charged, Hawaii state law lets the counties enact laws allowing for signs on vehicles so long as they are not used primarily for that purpose, he said.
"I don’t think it’s illegal at all, and I think the people who tell you that it’s illegal, you should ask them to prove to you that it’s illegal," Formby told committee members.
But John Whalen, adviser for the nonprofit Scenic Hawaii and a former land utilization director for the city, said he’s not convinced that the measure will be able to withstand legal challenges.
In response to Formby, Whalen said, "I do believe that when a law is proposed, it’s incumbent on the proposer to prove that the law is consistent with enabling state statute."
About two dozen Outdoor Circle members testified against the project Friday, warning it would create a visual blight and set a legal precedent making it easier for commercial interests to be able to sell advertising on their vehicles.
Some suggested it would have an immeasurable negative impact on tourism.
Haleiwa resident Kathryn Whitmire said she and other Outdoor Circle members raised money to help the city defend its billboard ordinance against aerial billboard advertising.
"We all fought that fight together," Whitmire said.
Wahiawa Heights resident Geno Tamayo, a longtime bus rider, was one of the few people supporting the measure.
Tamayo said that when transit costs go up, the city cannot rely on existing city or federal sources or hiking bus fares to cover the increases.
Cuts have forced him to have to transfer buses, sometimes twice, to get to his destination.
Kobayashi told colleagues the bill should be deferred because of lingering legal questions, as well as a desire by some Council members for language to be included in the measure requiring that revenues go directly to bus operations.
Council Chairman Ernie Martin said he would have preferred the bill be shelved permanently. Rather than allow for bus ads to pay for the routes Caldwell is promising, Martin said, "I can find the money for all these services."
He suggested eliminating vacant positions in the managing director’s office and Council staff as a starting point.
The deferral was supported by other members of the Budget Committee, although Stanley Chang and Kymberly Pine said they were doing so with reservations because of the need to increase bus service.
Chang and Pine stood with Caldwell at a news conference Thursday supporting changes that would make the bill more palatable to opponents.
Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga said she’s hoping state lawmakers will be able provide more funding for operations.
