Please Please Please – Join me TODAY in offering testimony in opposition to SB3240.

SB3240 is scheduled to be heard by PBS on Friday, 03-13-26 9:00AM in House conference room 411 – so testimony must be submitted NOW and before tomorrow morning at 9am in order to be “on time”.

Here is what I sent in – Please put something into your own words (or borrow some of mine) and keeping it short and to the point is fine.

Please also share with your friends and networks. gh

Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto and Committee Members –

I’m writing today in strong opposition to SB3240 and ask that you defer this measure.

SB3240 seeks to appropriate funds to the DBEDT Military And Community Relations Office (MACRO). The original request was $1.3 million. 

In these tight budget times, this funding is needed to support homeless programs, healthcare, food/SNAP, and many other things.  The U.S. military and the defense industry can well afford to pay for their own public relations efforts.

MACRO, is an agency of the State that focuses on public relations, communications, and managing public sentiment with regards to the U.S. military operations in Hawaiʻi. 

Given the current strong community concerns and opposition to further expansion of the U.S. militaries footprint in Hawaiʻi AND given the reality of the current federal administrations Department of War position of “no rules of engagement” and the purpose of the military is to “kill people and break things” AND given the destruction and carnage now occurring in the MidEast – PLUS the U.S. militaries history of irresponsible and damaging conduct at Red Hill and Pōhakuloa…and so many other examples – I believe strongly that it is inappropriate at best…for the State of Hawaiʻi to actively support and fund a PR and communications campaign designed to support the defense industries expansion here in the islands – AND seeks access to our public school students.

SB3240 proposes (paraphrase) “to enhance communication and responsiveness, strengthen Hawai‘i defense-related workforce pathways, and integrate the exposure of students in grades kindergarten through twelve…and align workforce development with evolving industrial and defense-related needs.”

According to publicly available information, MACRO has hired a public relations agency to, “Utilize automated data scraping tools to collect and analyze relevant public commentary from news sites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms to assess evolving sentiment toward military-related issues…” They also draft press releases, ghost-write oped columns, prepare testimony, issue talking points etc.

MACRO intends now to bring their defense industry messaging into our public school system under the guise of “workforce development”.

Hawaiʻi State Government should not be allowing and certainly not funding any military/defense industry access to our kindergarten and public school students in order to plant seeds of support for “defense-related needs”. If anything, we should be teaching diplomacy, peace-making, and nonviolent dispute resolution skills in our schools – not promoting the Department of War’s agenda.

For these reasons and many more – please oppose and defer SB3240 and do not pass it forward.

Sincerely,
Gary Hooser