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Once the results of the May 3 election are counted, canvassed and ratified by Cameron County, it’s very likely Starbase, Texas, will be the state’s newest municipality.
In December, county Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. received a petition from more than 10% of the several hundred eligible voters who are residents of Starbase — SpaceX’s name for its Starship/Super Heavy construction and testing complex centered around the currently unincorporated Boca Chica Village — requesting that an incorporation election be called.
Since the petition met the requirements set forth by the Texas Local Government Code, Trevino was required by law to call an election, which he scheduled for May 3 to coincide with the statewide Uniform Election. Assuming Starbase voters approve the ballot question, Starbase will be incorporated as a Type C general law municipality, or one with more than 201 but fewer than 4,999 residents.
According to Trevino, the last new municipality to be incorporated in Cameron County was Los Indios, in 1995.
According to the petition, the territory of the proposed municipality consists of approximately 1.45 square miles. According to state law, a proposed municipality of fewer than 2,000 residents cannot incorporate if the surface area exceeds 2 square miles.
Starbase has been recognized as a “distinct area within Cameron County” according to resolutions approved by the county commissioners court and Brownsville City Commission.
The December petition was signed by Gunnar Milburn, senior security manager at Starbase and then sole candidate for mayor, though the new sole mayoral candidate is Bobby Peden, vice president of SpaceX Texas test and launch operations, whose name appears on the May 3 ballot.
The petition was also signed by Jordan Buss and Jenna Petrzelka, whose names appear on the ballot as Starbase city commission candidates. Buss’s ballot application form lists his occupation as environmental health and safety director, while Petrzelka’s application form lists her occupation as “philanthropist.”
In a cover letter to the petition, Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote that SpaceX hoped to incorporate Starbase in order to keep growing it, and by extension “continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship.”
Incorporation would streamline the building of “amenities necessary to make the area a world-class place to live” for current resident/employees and those to come, she said.
“As you know, through agreements with the County, SpaceX currently performs several civil functions around Starbase due to its remote location, including management of the roads, utilities, and the provision of schooling and medical care for the residents,” Lueders wrote. “Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate public body.”
SpaceX’s last two suborbital test flights (Flights 7 and 8) from Boca Chica/Starbase, on Jan. 16 and March 6, ended with the loss of the Starship test vehicles over the Caribbean. No date has been announced for Flight 9.