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URGENT UPDATE: VOTE HAPPENING TODAY, APRIL 29 AT 5PM

Tuesday, April 29 at 5pm – 525 N. Commerce St, Port Lavaca, TX 77979

We just found out the school board is voting TODAY on this $242 MILLION tax break for ExxonMobil with minimal public notice! The notice is difficult to find online and the physical notice wasn’t posted until April 25. Don’t let them keep you silent!

TAKE ACTION NOW:

1. Sign the letter below
2. Attend today’s meeting, 5pm at 525 N. Commerce St, Port Lavaca, TX 77979
3. Email the board members urging they immediately cancel the vote until proper public notice is given for a time where working people can attend.

Board member email addresses (copy & paste): alfordc@calcoisd.org, floresr@calcoisd.org, gaskampd@calcoisd.org, leall@calcoisd.org, phillipsv@calcoisd.org, roblesd@calcoisd.org, shraderb@calcoisd.org, cardwelle@calcoisd.org

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Your tax dollars belong in our classrooms, not in ExxonMobil’s pockets. The school board is considering a $242 million tax abatement for ExxonMobil’s Coastal Plain Project – a massive $8.6 billion plastics plant that threatens our community’s health and environment. We pay taxes, why shouldn’t they?

While our schools struggle with budget shortfalls, ExxonMobil (with $33 billion in profits last year) wants your money to build a facility that would further pollute our bays and waterways, endanger our fishing industry, and increase dangerous traffic on Highway 35. The proposed plant would be located near the existing Formosa Plastics facility, which has already violated environmental agreements hundreds of times.

Sign today to tell our school board: Fund education, not corporate pollution! Vote NO on the ExxonMobil tax break.

To: Calhoun County ISD School Board
From: [Your Name]

TO:
Evan Cardwell, Superintendent
Bill Shrader, District 4, President
Lori Leal, District 6, Vice President
Cynthia Alford, District 5, Secretary
Dominic Robles, District 1
Vinson Phillips, District 2
Rene Flores, District 3
David Gaskamp, District-at-Large

Dear Calhoun County Independent School District Superintendent and Board Members,

As residents of Calhoun County with concerns about community safety; responsible stewardship of the land, bays, and waterways; and economic well-being of our county; we are asking that you deny the JETI application for tax breaks from the ExxonMobil Corporation for its Coastal Plain Project, for the following reasons:

1. This $242 million tax abatement would further decrease funding for educating children in Texas school districts, including Calhoun County ISD. Our school district has already suffered from funding shortages. Already, Point Comfort Elementary was closed in 2011, and the district has lost dozens of positions due to school district budget cuts. ExxonMobil made $33B in profits in 2024, so it should be paying its fair share of Texas to fund the public school system in our state.
2. The Coastal Plain Project would increase traffic on State Highway 35, which has already resulted in serious accidents. The volume and speed of industry-related traffic on this road, also known as the “Formosa 500”, presents a massive risk for the safety of our community. The construction and operation of ExxonMobil’s facility in Point Comfort would bring additional traffic to the area, putting our families’ lives on the line.
3. ExxonMobil’s Coastal Plain Project would further devastate commercial fishing & oystering. Already, the livelihoods of local fishers have been threatened by harmful industrial pollution. The presence of mercury at the Lavaca Bay Superfund site puts the economic well-being of fisherfolk at risk, as well as consumers of seafood from the bay. Plastic pellets and powder have been found in fish and oysters harvested from Matagorda Bay, due to the illegal discharge of plastics from Formosa Plastics. The Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative has planned an oyster farm project in Keller Bay, one of the largest of its kind in Texas, which additional plastic pollution from Exxon would greatly endanger.
4. Plastic pollution in the area is already a disaster, but the construction and operation of ExxonMobil’s Coastal Plain Project could lead to a further rise in water and air pollution. Since the 2019 Clean Water Act lawsuit in which Formosa Plastics agreed to comply with “zero discharge” of plastic pollutants in the future, the facility in Point Comfort has committed 770 violations of this mandate. Cox Creek is undergoing an extensive remediation process to deal with the pollution from Formosa Plastics, involving a clean-up of plastic pellets in Cox Creek that will cost an estimated $50 million at completion with excavated soils reaching 6″ to as much as 32” along the creek bed. Exxon’s facility would endanger the current cleanup in Cox Creek and also the future clean-up in Lavaca and Matagorda Bays, which includes the shoreline of over 270 property owners, potentially adding additional plastic, toxins, and air pollution into the community that could worsen the cumulative health impacts in our area.

For all of these reasons, we are firmly asking that you deny the proposed tax abatement for ExxonMobil’s Coastal Plain Project. Please honor your responsibility as school board members by choosing to protect the health and safety of the families in our district, and vote NO.

Sincerely,
[Signatures to be attached]

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