Judge okays vote on whether SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility can incorporate as city
After reviewing the local petition submitted by SpaceX requesting permission, a local judge as signed an order allowing the citizens of Boca Chica to vote on whether they can incorporate as city in Texas.
The incorporation petition, [Cameron County Judge Eddie] Treviño explained, was duly signed by at least ten percent of the qualified voters of Starbase. Additionally, the petition satisfied the statutorily required elements and set forth satisfactory proof that Starbase contains the requisite number of inhabitants as required by law and the area to be incorporated is not part of another incorporated city or town.
Since the submitted petition met all statutory requirements, Treviño said he is required under Section 8.009 of the Texas Local Government Code to order that an incorporation election be held on a specific date and at a designate place in the community.
The election is set to occur during the general election on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025.
SpaceX itself had organized the petition and submitted it to the county in mid-December, noting that it already “…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. Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate public body.”
Expect the petition to be approved, making Starbase at Boca Chica one of the most spectacular company towns ever to exist.
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After reviewing the local petition submitted by SpaceX requesting permission, a local judge as signed an order allowing the citizens of Boca Chica to vote on whether they can incorporate as city in Texas.
The incorporation petition, [Cameron County Judge Eddie] Treviño explained, was duly signed by at least ten percent of the qualified voters of Starbase. Additionally, the petition satisfied the statutorily required elements and set forth satisfactory proof that Starbase contains the requisite number of inhabitants as required by law and the area to be incorporated is not part of another incorporated city or town.
Since the submitted petition met all statutory requirements, Treviño said he is required under Section 8.009 of the Texas Local Government Code to order that an incorporation election be held on a specific date and at a designate place in the community.
The election is set to occur during the general election on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025.
SpaceX itself had organized the petition and submitted it to the county in mid-December, noting that it already “…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. Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate public body.”
Expect the petition to be approved, making Starbase at Boca Chica one of the most spectacular company towns ever to exist.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
As far as I know, the only “original” person left in Boca Chica is BocaChicaGal.
Excuse my ignorance here…. In the UK a city has to have a cathedral… That’s about as much as I know….
If the residents vote thumbs up, will Boca Chica become a self governing “city” in the state of Texas, responsible for its own distribution of tax funds, public amenities, etc?
I genuinely have no clue how these things work… But if my vague idea is correct, would this mean that elections will be held for posts in the city’s governing council… Indeed, I guess a council will need to be created?
This is fascinating, although my spider senses tingle a little with the idea of Mr Musk having his fingers in too many pies… Perhaps your checks and balances will prevent any conflicts of interest…
I’m not looking for criticism, or trying to be controversial, just trying to understand… ( For once, some may say ;-)
Lee S: Simply put, if the voters in Boca Chica approve the measure, their area will incorporate as a city. They will then have to organize their local government and elect their representatives. Small towns and cities in America can have a whole range of arrangements. Some can decide all they need is a mayor. Sometimes they form council which hires a town manager to do the nuts and bolts management.
It is entirely up to the citizens who live there. Musk will be only one person with one vote, though obviously his positions on any issue will carry great weight.
Thanks Bob…
This clears up something that I have been pondering on for a few years. The last time I was in the US I was in the City of Mannington, WV. Population C. 4000. It has puzzled me how what would be classed as a small town in the UK or Sweden could be a city.
It makes nothing but sense that the fine people I met there would vote for self governance… I might disagree on principal, but I have nothing but respect for the independent attitude of the folk of Mannington.
Lee,
In almost all US states, the difference between a city, town, village, etc are purely semantics and ‘branding’. There’s no legal or functional difference, and the laws around forming one simply refer to them as cities. There is simply the state, unincorporated county areas, and incorporated city areas.
A few of the oldest states have legal villages or townships that have some differences from cities, but in Texas there is no difference.
Lee–
It’s not super complicated, but ya’ sorta’ have to live here to understand it, and even then, most of our Citizens have no clue, so don’t feel too bad!
We have our own definition of “Cities & Towns” that may or may not correspond with European naming conventions. And they vary by region; New England has different naming conventions than does the Midwest.
(My g-father was a civil engineer, and my dad was a land-surveyor.)
Two things are happening concurrently; we have the land divided up for purposes of settlement, and then we have those land divisions that form-up for purposes of political representation.
Local was local, State was State, but we elect the President nationally by Congressional Districts.
Political subdivisions closely follow land divisions in the USA but are not identical. This generally holds true in every State., and it’s very obvious in the Midwest. (Everything is nice and square, and flat!)
I’m in Michigan; our State is divided up into Counties, and we have 83 of them.
Originally surveyed by the government down to (roughly) one square mile Sections of about 640 acres each, called Survey Townships. (Errors were made some miles were short, some were long, and angles of squares vary–it comes from putting square lots on a round Earth and having to literally cut a straight line through the wilderness.)
Each Survey Township (or Congressional township) was made up of 36 individual Sections or roughly 36 square miles.
“Survey Townships” are under political control of the County in which they exist.
A “Civil Township” in contrast is a political division for purposes of national representation.
In Michigan, the smallest political subdivision is 1 square mile.
Generally, each Township originally reserved one Section (of the 36) of land for the benefit of “a school.” They could sell it or trade it, but they had to use the proceeds to fund a school.
For what it’s worth, I live in the “Town of Cary” estimated population 180,000.
I was going to comment that you guys explanation of the naming and status of verious towns/city’s/states made things as clear as mud for me… Until I realized I actually had no clear picture of what exactly makes a UK city a city…
I have done a bit of a dive, and I was correct that a UK city needs a cathedral… Except when it doesn’t! There seems to be competitions where verious towns via over a limited number of places, applications for city status for exceptional reasons, at the end of the day it seems to be all down to only the monarch who can grant city status…. And city status can be revoked under certain circumstances.
There are certainly local government ramifications for having city status in the UK, but once I had got this far my brain was starting to melt… And let’s be honest… We don’t need to know everything about everything!
Thanks very much for the feedback… I feel slightly better educated than before I asked the question, but only slightly! More so in the US system, but very much less than I thought I was in UK law!
“I have done a bit of a dive, and I was correct that a UK city needs a cathedral… ”
Soon to be a Mosque.
wayne,
I spent a year working in New Jersey (at a place I call “Yoyodyne,” because it was located pretty much where Buckaroo Banzai’s nemesis had his aerospace company,* just outside Grover’s Mill), and no one could explain the state’s townships. They weren’t towns, and they weren’t counties, but they definitely exist.
Lee S,
The cathedral requirement makes sense. Back in the good old days, when the plague walked the earth (and earlier), some of the villages were too small to have their own cleric, so marriages were declared and then officially performed when the wandering cleric made his rounds to the village. For this reason, many children were born in these villages less than six months after the marriage was officially recorded. Clearly, the UK wants to make sure that every city has religious support.
_________________
* Hmm. Come to think of it, that company isn’t there anymore (just like Yoyodyne). I don’t remember everyone having the name “John,” though.
I lived in Santa Cruz County’s Santa Cruz Mountains (in central Calif.), more or less adjacent to Silicon Valley, for 40+ years, where in the San Lorenzo Valley there’s a string of communities each about 6,000 population, adding up to about 20,000 altogether—none of which are incorporated, and thus are merely unincorporated county land. Now I live in Etna, in far northern Calif. (Siskiyou County), which—with a population of around 800—is incorporated. It has a City Hall, Police Department (which it shares with another, similar-sized incorporated “city”—Fort Jones) located a dozen miles away.
Lee–
Explain to me the whole City of London Corporation, thing.
That’s some weird medieval king-worshipping stuff in that set-up.
Basically, what Alan C. said.
There are regional differences as far as Naming conventions go, but they are generally just Names for Places.
For Political Representation, Taxes, Schools, and Land Zoning, it’s important to be careful where you physically live.