As a national workforce consultant living in Baton Rouge, I am excited to hear about ExxonMobil’s Innovation Suite potentially coming to Baton Rouge. The beauty of this project is that it’s future-proofing our industrial manufacturing for this region, which means jobs for a long time for our current workforce and future workforce.

I am a transplant from South Chicago where I have seen how the loss of manufacturing jobs brought despair and crime while increasing taxes for everyone since there were no manufacturers and industries adding to the tax base to support schools and other government services. As a result, my parents, who are retired teachers, worried if their retirement would remain solvent because the Illinois economy failed to reproduce its manufacturing and industrial base.

Today, many Illinois citizens are dealing with slow personal income growth, and high taxes on income, while maintaining high property taxes. I love my home state, but there are few to no opportunities for me to return. At the same time, I do not want to see the state in which I have rooted myself for over 23 years meet this same fate.

Let’s not take the primrose path of Illinois, by not investing in large tax-based producers and employers.

Therefore, I hope that the EBR Parish School Board approves ExxonMobil’s ITEP request so we can continue to grow and support our tax base by supporting these investments in our economy.

GIRARD J. MELANCON

Baton Rouge