Records dump shows hundreds of letters sent to Starbase residents warning possible loss of property rights
The leopards eating faces party won’t eat my face when I join it. They were told they could lose their homes before they voted to make Musk the king of his own town. The right gets so star struck they will vote for things they know will hurt them. Hugs
A view along St. Jude Street at SpaceX’s Starbase at Boca Chica Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)
The newly incorporated city of Starbase has sent out hundreds letters to property owners and individuals who reside within its city limits notifying them about the possibility that they may lose their property pending the city’s adoption of a zoning ordinance.
A Texas Public Information Act request filed by MyRGV.com has revealed that hundreds of such letters were sent.
The letters, which are dated May 21, invite the recipients to attend a public hearing scheduled for Monday in which the proposed comprehensive zoning ordinance will be discussed and possibly adopted.
Recipients of the letters were informed that they either live or own property that is listed in areas that could be impacted by the zoning ordinance if it is approved.
“Our goal is to ensure that the zoning plan reflects the City’s vision for balanced growth, protecting critical economic drivers, ensuring public safety, and preserving green spaces,” the letters read.
The letters each follow the same format, notifying recipients that the properties in question are listed in areas that the city says will be located in either the “Heavy Industrial District,” the “Open Space District,” or the “Mixed Use District.” They also include proposed zoning maps showing the areas that could be affected.
The city’s intentions with each of the districts are briefly explained in the letters.
“The Heavy Industrial District is intended for large-scale industrial and manufacturing activities that, by their nature, require robust infrastructure, significant space, and larger buffers from non-industrial uses,” one letter explained.
“The Open Space District is designed to preserve and enhance lands for recreation, conservation, environmental protection and ensure public safety from critical operations,” another read.
“The Mixed Use District allows for a blend of residential, office, retail, and small-scale service uses,” read another.
This map illustrates the city of Starbase’s proposed zoning map. The blue is designated for the Mixed Use District. The Open Space District is in green. And in red is the Heavy Industrial District. (Courtesy graphic)
The letters then go on to inform the recipients that the upcoming hearing could result in the loss of property.
“The city of Starbase is holding a hearing that will determine whether you may lose the right to continue using your property for its current use, please read this notice carefully,” the letter reads in all caps and bolded letters.
The letter ends encouraging recipients to contact Starbase City Administrator Kent Myers with any questions or comments for the public hearing, which must be submitted by 3 p.m. on June 22.
The public hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday the city of Starbase temporary city hall, which is located at 39046 L B J Boulevard. The agenda for the meeting has yet to be posted on the city’s website, which according to state law must be posted 72 hours before the scheduled meeting.
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
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28 thoughts on “Records dump shows hundreds of letters sent to Starbase residents warning possible loss of property rights”
I keep saying that any day Bobby Brainworm is going to announce a new MAHA initiative to get to the bottom of the explosively rising obesity epidemic in our face-eating leopard population.
(He’ll probably say it’s something about antidepressant prescriptions, measles vaccines and not using tallow for frying oil.)
Hi Bruce. What you say is possible because his entire life has been a grift using his family name. He never has done anything productive. He made his money early in life trading on his family name, then in the rest of his life he added his name to anti vaccine legal firms that is where his real millions come from. He is a grifter who offered to sell his name to both Kamala and tRump depending on which one would give him the best deal. Harris had the courage to tell him to go pound sand, but of course tRump being a scammer himself made a deal. Hugs
Honestly he did a lot of good back in the day when he was the in-house attorney for the environmental group RiverKeeper in New York; they did a lot to clean up the Hudson River of industrial pollution (I actually met him once at one of Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Festivals, back when we lived in Ossining in the mid 80’s. )
This was before the brain-rot and anti-vax BS had set in.
Hi Bruce. That is very interesting to me. I just wonder why he changed? Was it money? Was it fame? See I don’t know his past other than what has been written such as stuff of his whale head stuff. It hurts when a person fighting for the people goes to the dark side and fights against the people. Hugs
I don’t think anyone has a good idea…It had to be post ’98 when Andrew Wakefield published his fraud paper about autism and the MMR vaccine. Maybe the early 00’s and we’d moved to Arizona in the meantime and kind of lost track of what was going on in NY.
The next I heard of him was him going around the bend over vaccination; a lot of the stuff that’s come out now we never knew back then, either.
Hi Ali. Sad to see how some people change as they age. Some age gracefully continuing to develop themselves, and others regress to their past and what they felt safe with in the past. And a sad few do what Kennedy did, reject all for the lure of money. Hugs
I used to be on my city’s planning commission, along with serving as a Board of Zoning Appeals member. We got lots of training on laws, the constitution, and good planning. On its face, this sounds good, and like a desirable place to live with this sort of planning (meaning the open space. It used to be called “green space.”) If all notified interested parties make the arrangements to attend, as they should, this can go in their favor, or they can appeal, though this being in TX, that depends upon their state law, of course. Anyway, whenever someone owns property in an area and something like this wants to happen, people need to show up. Sometimes attendance is limited to only those who are interested parties, which means they own property in the area or within a certain distance of the area being discussed. Anyway, if people don’t show up, it means they’re ok with what is proposed. There is nothing for it if people don’t show up, and decisions are made. And it’ll be their own faults if their property is affected.
Only if the property owners don’t show. maga can’t do anything at a hearing such as this. At least, nothing legal; they could storm it, I suppose. But it’s not about maga, it’s about zoning and land use. maga would likely know little to nothing about these things unless they were notified because they own land in the area. They would have to read the letters, too. 😉
Hi Ali. I did not express myself well. Here is what I was thinking. It is Texas so there is a lot of maga. I was thinking that if the town was 50 -50 or even slightly more maga republican than “normal” or centralist republicans that the maga is going to try to steam roll the rest of the town’s people. But yes it is important for the voters to show up as we learned the hard way for school boards when the hard right took them over. It took three or four years to get them semi back. But you have far more experience with this stuff than I do. Hugs
OK. But this type of hearing is only for interested parties, and interested parties by definition must be property owners. Tenants are usually accepted, but if they and the property owner from whom they rent disagree, the owner is given more leverage by most laws.
So this isn’t a voter thing until you go back to however an area’s planning commission and BZA are chosen; that usually has to do with elections of local/county governing bodies; yet another thing for voters to pay attention to when these people are up for election! But as to a zoning hearing, only the commission and the interested parties, including the petitioner, have business. Outside of the given area, no one else is notified, and mostly, have no voice if they did disagree, until the case goes to the governing body. Then voters can step up! But not this particular type of hearing, in the original story.
Hi Ali. I just reread this and I think I missed or just skipped over the part that this vote would only be for those that have property. So the more upper income vs the poorer people who rent. Again upper income is likely to be maga than lower living paycheck to paycheck people. So now I am again back to asking could this be a maga take over against the wishes of the more majority lower income non-property owners? Again as I said above this is an area you know far better than I and you sat on these boards that I never did, so I differ to your experience. But could what I wrote happen? That scares me if so, more taking over of oligarchs in the US society. Hugs
If it helps, this being Starbase, it is unlikely that there are poor people living there who could lose their rental home. Or any renters, really; my best guess is it’s full of Musk cronies. But, it’ll all shake out for ’em all. Unless you’re curious about the process, no need to read further because blahblahblah! 😀
Generally speaking, in my area magats are, economically, barely hanging on to dirt poor but still feel they’re better than that you-know-what who lives farther South.
And, yes, when a commission like this calls a hearing, it is for usually for property owners. Other people with concerns, such as tenants if it can affect their living space, usually have the right to speak during the hearing as long as the actual interested parties don’t use up all the time. In a case of residences, property owners and tenants usually have the same interests. The commissions here tend to give everyone their 5 minutes, just to be courteous and not possibly get sued. We’ve even changed meeting times and locations to accommodate crowds! But, because the use of eminent domain, or the assessment of special taxes on property, or the placement of an industry, etc. affects property owners themselves, they’re the interested parties.
Back to Starbase, this really looks more like a strategic plan, which is a good thing for a city to have (in KS, strat plans are required by state law, and required by the same law to be reviewed and re-passed every year.) The thing with the strat plan is, as real issues like where to put a meat processing plant or a multi-family building housing development arise, the strat plan is the guideline for where those go.
But usually when such a thing comes up, plats and site plans are required and public hearings are had then, so the concerned and interested parties may come to be heard, and to see precisely what is happening. Usually a loss of property is really the easement, which the locality will take though the owner will mow and take care of their trees. The easement is not a lot of land. People tend to care far more about special assessment tax on their properties, which come about with street and sewer upgrades, etc.
This original story is not a thing where a TX city government has allowed land to be sold, and then is going to yank that land away from the owners. Also, I apologize for this being so much to read. I get where I want to explain everything, because the more we know, the better off we are! 🙂 I used to be a real city planning geek, and I still enjoy it.
Hi Ali. Oh no I am glad I did not skip over anything you wrote. Your personal knowledge is priceless. I wish I had such a thing myself. I am going to respond to your grand reply in bits and hope I do not sound too clueless. Again thanks for explaining this stuff to me.
I love the idea of a city / town plan to maximize places people can walk or spend time in green areas, while having walking distance to stores or needed facilities. So I am not against the idea of city planning. OK running back into my memories in Germany in the 1980s I was great friends with a couple who often had me in their home. They had a small dishwasher size fridge, and they only got that when their first child was born. They stopped at the local shops on their way home from work at local stores and got the stuff they needed for supper that night and breakfast the next day. I was shocked at that. I grew up with weekly grocery shopping where you loaded a cart or two with everything you might need for the next week, and then repeated the entire thing the next week.
I have long been a believer in the idea of 15 minutes cities, where the idea is to have everything a person might need daily with in 15 minutes of walking. Again it goes back to the time I lived in Germany where that was the normal way of life. When I was in Germany I could use a bus or subway to get anywhere I needed to go. I never waited more than 10 minutes for either. It worked so well. But that country but the money into mass transit. I knew very few people that had a personal car. Those that did rarely used them. It was wonderful.
Also, I apologize for this being so much to read. I get where I want to explain everything, because the more we know, the better off we are!
I used to be a real city planning geek, and I still enjoy it.
Oh Ali I have read much longer far less interesting things than what you wrote. Please if you think you need to write more to explain things kindly do. I loved and hung on every word. It was exciting to learn how city planning and government works. Please, Please feel free to be a geek and explain things anyway you like. It helps all of us that don’t have your knowledge or experience. Thanks. Hugs
Don’t worry about sounding clueless. Nobody knows about city planning and zoning, unless/until they do it. All the engineers who taught the classes and trainings we got said so.
Hi Ali. Glad to have you as a wonderful resource for not only city zoning but all the other things you have experience on that you share with us. We are lucky to have your experience to guide us. Hugs
You know, I keep reading this over, looking for something, and the thing I noticed is that this was in 2024. I wonder how it all worked out for the property owners?
OK. Just because I raised the question, I was here this morning (6/21/25, 9AM), and clicked through to the story to see if there’d been an update. The story includes the full letter, which shows more current dates, for 2025. Apparently people have till 3 PM tomorrow (Sunday, in KS…) to submit something they want on the meeting agenda. So this hasn’t happened yet, and notified interested parties can still appear to see what’s proposed on the record, and to save their property, if need be. I wanted to clarify, since I raised the question of the date.
I love the clarification Ali. I love to be updated on stories I post. I thought the people were already screwed. I hope the good people overruled the bad. Hugs
Well, these are TX landowners in Starbase! So, for us here, it’s subjective who’s good, and who’s bad. But, the proceeding is very straightforward. The better interests of all the interested parties is the basis of the decision.
Yeah, apparently there’s a city planning meeting in Starbase (Musk’s little city in TX) on Monday morning, with land use plans that owners need to be present to state yea or nay and why, and so forth. It’s fairly standard stuff, but people don’t tend to be aware of these things until they get notified about something happening in/by their own neighborhoods, and then it’s a shock. I was looking for the date of the meeting so I could check on updates, and saw it’s a current letter. I should have read the whole thing, but didn’t as usually these notices tell at least somewhat specifically what the petitioners are bringing before the commission, so people can decide if they care. Frequently it’s issues like easements, zoning of areas, and/or placement of industries, businesses, multi-family homes, and so forth. From the reportage, it sounds much like that.
Hi MDavis. What this reminded me of was the pre New Deal company owned towns where people were paid with tokens that could only be used in the country store. All the homes were owned by the company and everything had to be bought at the company store. The worker got deeper in debt no matter how hard they worked. It was deliberate. This is the goal of the ultra wealthy in the US, Musk is just the first to try to bring it back. Hugs
Well, and Starbase could very well turn out to be a company town in just that fashion, Scottie. We all wonder about that. If the workers don’t own but only rent, well, there’s that. Then, if they must shop in town, at company stores, with Bitcoin or salary deduction, then there’s that, too. I’m not saying that can’t happen, and I’m pretty sure Musk would be drooling at the thought!
But this meeting is above-board and normal. All municipalities have these.
A view along St. Jude Street at SpaceX’s Starbase at Boca Chica Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)
Scottie's Playtime 
I keep saying that any day Bobby Brainworm is going to announce a new MAHA initiative to get to the bottom of the explosively rising obesity epidemic in our face-eating leopard population.
(He’ll probably say it’s something about antidepressant prescriptions, measles vaccines and not using tallow for frying oil.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Bruce. What you say is possible because his entire life has been a grift using his family name. He never has done anything productive. He made his money early in life trading on his family name, then in the rest of his life he added his name to anti vaccine legal firms that is where his real millions come from. He is a grifter who offered to sell his name to both Kamala and tRump depending on which one would give him the best deal. Harris had the courage to tell him to go pound sand, but of course tRump being a scammer himself made a deal. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
Honestly he did a lot of good back in the day when he was the in-house attorney for the environmental group RiverKeeper in New York; they did a lot to clean up the Hudson River of industrial pollution (I actually met him once at one of Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Festivals, back when we lived in Ossining in the mid 80’s. )
This was before the brain-rot and anti-vax BS had set in.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Bruce. That is very interesting to me. I just wonder why he changed? Was it money? Was it fame? See I don’t know his past other than what has been written such as stuff of his whale head stuff. It hurts when a person fighting for the people goes to the dark side and fights against the people. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think anyone has a good idea…It had to be post ’98 when Andrew Wakefield published his fraud paper about autism and the MMR vaccine. Maybe the early 00’s and we’d moved to Arizona in the meantime and kind of lost track of what was going on in NY.
The next I heard of him was him going around the bend over vaccination; a lot of the stuff that’s come out now we never knew back then, either.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Of course back then we barely had internet, too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I remember that-he was quite environmental, then out of sight, then anti-vax. And now, well. sigh
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Hi Ali. Sad to see how some people change as they age. Some age gracefully continuing to develop themselves, and others regress to their past and what they felt safe with in the past. And a sad few do what Kennedy did, reject all for the lure of money. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
I used to be on my city’s planning commission, along with serving as a Board of Zoning Appeals member. We got lots of training on laws, the constitution, and good planning. On its face, this sounds good, and like a desirable place to live with this sort of planning (meaning the open space. It used to be called “green space.”) If all notified interested parties make the arrangements to attend, as they should, this can go in their favor, or they can appeal, though this being in TX, that depends upon their state law, of course. Anyway, whenever someone owns property in an area and something like this wants to happen, people need to show up. Sometimes attendance is limited to only those who are interested parties, which means they own property in the area or within a certain distance of the area being discussed. Anyway, if people don’t show up, it means they’re ok with what is proposed. There is nothing for it if people don’t show up, and decisions are made. And it’ll be their own faults if their property is affected.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In other words, the NIMBYs better show up if they don’t like this!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. Yes but sadly I feel this is a case of maga Texans over ruling their fellow towns people. Hugs
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Only if the property owners don’t show. maga can’t do anything at a hearing such as this. At least, nothing legal; they could storm it, I suppose. But it’s not about maga, it’s about zoning and land use. maga would likely know little to nothing about these things unless they were notified because they own land in the area. They would have to read the letters, too. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. I did not express myself well. Here is what I was thinking. It is Texas so there is a lot of maga. I was thinking that if the town was 50 -50 or even slightly more maga republican than “normal” or centralist republicans that the maga is going to try to steam roll the rest of the town’s people. But yes it is important for the voters to show up as we learned the hard way for school boards when the hard right took them over. It took three or four years to get them semi back. But you have far more experience with this stuff than I do. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
OK. But this type of hearing is only for interested parties, and interested parties by definition must be property owners. Tenants are usually accepted, but if they and the property owner from whom they rent disagree, the owner is given more leverage by most laws.
So this isn’t a voter thing until you go back to however an area’s planning commission and BZA are chosen; that usually has to do with elections of local/county governing bodies; yet another thing for voters to pay attention to when these people are up for election! But as to a zoning hearing, only the commission and the interested parties, including the petitioner, have business. Outside of the given area, no one else is notified, and mostly, have no voice if they did disagree, until the case goes to the governing body. Then voters can step up! But not this particular type of hearing, in the original story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. I just reread this and I think I missed or just skipped over the part that this vote would only be for those that have property. So the more upper income vs the poorer people who rent. Again upper income is likely to be maga than lower living paycheck to paycheck people. So now I am again back to asking could this be a maga take over against the wishes of the more majority lower income non-property owners? Again as I said above this is an area you know far better than I and you sat on these boards that I never did, so I differ to your experience. But could what I wrote happen? That scares me if so, more taking over of oligarchs in the US society. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
If it helps, this being Starbase, it is unlikely that there are poor people living there who could lose their rental home. Or any renters, really; my best guess is it’s full of Musk cronies. But, it’ll all shake out for ’em all. Unless you’re curious about the process, no need to read further because blahblahblah! 😀
Generally speaking, in my area magats are, economically, barely hanging on to dirt poor but still feel they’re better than that you-know-what who lives farther South.
And, yes, when a commission like this calls a hearing, it is for usually for property owners. Other people with concerns, such as tenants if it can affect their living space, usually have the right to speak during the hearing as long as the actual interested parties don’t use up all the time. In a case of residences, property owners and tenants usually have the same interests. The commissions here tend to give everyone their 5 minutes, just to be courteous and not possibly get sued. We’ve even changed meeting times and locations to accommodate crowds! But, because the use of eminent domain, or the assessment of special taxes on property, or the placement of an industry, etc. affects property owners themselves, they’re the interested parties.
Back to Starbase, this really looks more like a strategic plan, which is a good thing for a city to have (in KS, strat plans are required by state law, and required by the same law to be reviewed and re-passed every year.) The thing with the strat plan is, as real issues like where to put a meat processing plant or a multi-family building housing development arise, the strat plan is the guideline for where those go.
But usually when such a thing comes up, plats and site plans are required and public hearings are had then, so the concerned and interested parties may come to be heard, and to see precisely what is happening. Usually a loss of property is really the easement, which the locality will take though the owner will mow and take care of their trees. The easement is not a lot of land. People tend to care far more about special assessment tax on their properties, which come about with street and sewer upgrades, etc.
This original story is not a thing where a TX city government has allowed land to be sold, and then is going to yank that land away from the owners. Also, I apologize for this being so much to read. I get where I want to explain everything, because the more we know, the better off we are! 🙂 I used to be a real city planning geek, and I still enjoy it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. Oh no I am glad I did not skip over anything you wrote. Your personal knowledge is priceless. I wish I had such a thing myself. I am going to respond to your grand reply in bits and hope I do not sound too clueless. Again thanks for explaining this stuff to me.
I love the idea of a city / town plan to maximize places people can walk or spend time in green areas, while having walking distance to stores or needed facilities. So I am not against the idea of city planning. OK running back into my memories in Germany in the 1980s I was great friends with a couple who often had me in their home. They had a small dishwasher size fridge, and they only got that when their first child was born. They stopped at the local shops on their way home from work at local stores and got the stuff they needed for supper that night and breakfast the next day. I was shocked at that. I grew up with weekly grocery shopping where you loaded a cart or two with everything you might need for the next week, and then repeated the entire thing the next week.
I have long been a believer in the idea of 15 minutes cities, where the idea is to have everything a person might need daily with in 15 minutes of walking. Again it goes back to the time I lived in Germany where that was the normal way of life. When I was in Germany I could use a bus or subway to get anywhere I needed to go. I never waited more than 10 minutes for either. It worked so well. But that country but the money into mass transit. I knew very few people that had a personal car. Those that did rarely used them. It was wonderful.
Also, I apologize for this being so much to read. I get where I want to explain everything, because the more we know, the better off we are!
I used to be a real city planning geek, and I still enjoy it.
Oh Ali I have read much longer far less interesting things than what you wrote. Please if you think you need to write more to explain things kindly do. I loved and hung on every word. It was exciting to learn how city planning and government works. Please, Please feel free to be a geek and explain things anyway you like. It helps all of us that don’t have your knowledge or experience. Thanks. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t worry about sounding clueless. Nobody knows about city planning and zoning, unless/until they do it. All the engineers who taught the classes and trainings we got said so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. Glad to have you as a wonderful resource for not only city zoning but all the other things you have experience on that you share with us. We are lucky to have your experience to guide us. Hugs
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)))blush(((
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You know, I keep reading this over, looking for something, and the thing I noticed is that this was in 2024. I wonder how it all worked out for the property owners?
LikeLiked by 1 person
OK. Just because I raised the question, I was here this morning (6/21/25, 9AM), and clicked through to the story to see if there’d been an update. The story includes the full letter, which shows more current dates, for 2025. Apparently people have till 3 PM tomorrow (Sunday, in KS…) to submit something they want on the meeting agenda. So this hasn’t happened yet, and notified interested parties can still appear to see what’s proposed on the record, and to save their property, if need be. I wanted to clarify, since I raised the question of the date.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love the clarification Ali. I love to be updated on stories I post. I thought the people were already screwed. I hope the good people overruled the bad. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, these are TX landowners in Starbase! So, for us here, it’s subjective who’s good, and who’s bad. But, the proceeding is very straightforward. The better interests of all the interested parties is the basis of the decision.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Letters to “Starbase”?
Thought this was a Star Wars joke.
I guess it was not!
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Yeah, apparently there’s a city planning meeting in Starbase (Musk’s little city in TX) on Monday morning, with land use plans that owners need to be present to state yea or nay and why, and so forth. It’s fairly standard stuff, but people don’t tend to be aware of these things until they get notified about something happening in/by their own neighborhoods, and then it’s a shock. I was looking for the date of the meeting so I could check on updates, and saw it’s a current letter. I should have read the whole thing, but didn’t as usually these notices tell at least somewhat specifically what the petitioners are bringing before the commission, so people can decide if they care. Frequently it’s issues like easements, zoning of areas, and/or placement of industries, businesses, multi-family homes, and so forth. From the reportage, it sounds much like that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi MDavis. What this reminded me of was the pre New Deal company owned towns where people were paid with tokens that could only be used in the country store. All the homes were owned by the company and everything had to be bought at the company store. The worker got deeper in debt no matter how hard they worked. It was deliberate. This is the goal of the ultra wealthy in the US, Musk is just the first to try to bring it back. Hugs
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, and Starbase could very well turn out to be a company town in just that fashion, Scottie. We all wonder about that. If the workers don’t own but only rent, well, there’s that. Then, if they must shop in town, at company stores, with Bitcoin or salary deduction, then there’s that, too. I’m not saying that can’t happen, and I’m pretty sure Musk would be drooling at the thought!
But this meeting is above-board and normal. All municipalities have these.
LikeLiked by 1 person