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New businesses draw opposition
This is a rebuttal to Justin Katusak’s recent commentary on the glossy photos and billion‑dollar headlines surrounding SpaceX, Rio Grande LNG and Port Alpha (July 28). The advertising spin hides what the Rio Grande Valley cannot afford to ignore: These projects carry real costs, and too many of these costs land on local communities while the profits leave.
Tax breaks and abatements aren’t “investments.” They are lost revenue for schools, drainage, emergency services and basic infrastructure. If officials call these sacrifices “necessary,” they should explain why residents must subsidize multinational corporations.
Regulations from agencies like the FAA and EPA are community protections. At Boca Chica, FAA mishap reports document explosions, debris scatter, brush fires and habitat impacts. SpaceX’s record also includes documented worker injuries and at least one fatality. Meanwhile, SpaceX attempts to increase its industrial footprint with additional acreage through a proposed land swap with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The LNG build‑out deserves equal scrutiny. Export terminals are designed to serve global markets, not local households. LNG exports can push U.S. natural gas prices higher when supply tightens, while the pollution, noise and permanent industrial footprint stay here.
Economic development shouldn’t mean trading away beaches, public lands or tax revenue for promises that may never materialize. Growth is welcome — but only when communities that share the risks share the rewards also.
Right now, the balance is off, and the RGV shouldn’t be expected to carry the weight for everyone else’s payday. Our communities deserve better than being the “sacrifice zone” for billion‑dollar ventures.
Diane Teter
Edinburg
Cities, schools should trim fat
Local news stories are sounding the alarm that the city of McAllen was thinking about increasing taxes; Edinburg wanted to do the same thing.
Usually residents get a state tax break and local entities raise their taxes to continue to feed the machine: city and local school district’s needs.
Now there is talk that instead of raising taxes the city of Edinburg just wants to raise your water rates by 11%, so they’re still taking your moolah; they are just doing it in a different way.
ECISD is saying they are in the red; they say they lost 800 students; but they don’t tell you who those students are or where they went. Why?
In the meanwhile, superintendents are making the same or more than the vice president of the United Sates. Again I ask, why?
Meanwhile, teachers are underpaid in comparison to administrators; yet, teachers do most of the work of educating your children. Why?
Solutions: trim administrative salaries at the top. Trim your departments. Cut back where it can be done because every household is doing just that — trimming the fat.
To keep picking the pockets of local residents is not the answer. As property values fall from overinflated levels, now they are heading for a correction because they are unsustainable for property owners.
It’s time to trim the fat at the top, and stop picking the pockets of residents.
Guadalupe B. Rodriguez
Edinburg
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