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By Juan Montoya
It sounded too good to be true.
Brownsville – or rather Boca Chica Beach – would be the site of billionaire Elon Musks's "first vertical commercial launch pad that would, could, might, be the site to send manned missions to Mars and beyond.
There would be some 500 jobs paying $55,000 each for local residents. The 12 monthly launches of commercial satellites would attract an estimated 15,000 tourists that would infuse millions into the local economy.
The economic impact was estimated at $51 million each year.
Local schools would greatly benefit from the science curriculum that was necessary to provide SpaceX with the trained workforce necessary to supply its ranks. Visions of propulsion engineers, astronauts, advanced technical degrees, and aerospace engineering degrees were dangled before the local residents.
State Senator Lucio and then-State Rep. Rene Oliveria were in full support of the plan. No one knew at the time that they – like a slew of Washington D.C and Austin legislators – had already gotten their benefit from the venture. It wasn't until later that we found out theat Lucio had pocketed $3,000 and Oliveira another $1,000, small peanuts compared to millions spent for SpaceX by the lobbying PACs under Musk's control.
SpaceX representatives at the 2012 Environmental Impact Statement (IES) before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hearing saw a population hungry for good jobs, educational opportunities for their kids, and an image as a cutting-edge community after a spate of disasters such as being the place where spring breaker Mark Kilroy was killed by satanist cult believers, the poorest community in the nation, the site of the John Allen Rubio beheading and mutilation of three children, and the infamy of being the home of a city commissioner who was recorded using the N-word that was released to the public, and to the nation.
That hunger was translated into general acceptance his golden carrot, with 73 of 75 commenters at the IES favoring his pie-in-the-sky. One was neutral and one was against. He was put on the list at the very end.
In return, Musk got $35 million in state, local and the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation incentives. Being that Brownsville was the poorest community in the state, if not the nation, that was a hefty investment in "the future." Even Harlingen and McAllen bit into the apple on the promise of jobs as a trade-off for their financial contribution to the billionaire.
Former Brownsville mayor said he asked Musk what he saw when he looked at the water from Boca Chica Beach and the billionaire had told him: "The future." If he had been truthful, Musk would have responded "Millions in incentives and abatements."
SpaceX had gotten some $4 million in tax abatements from Cameron County.
Not only that but Boca Chica Beach – the poor people's beach – would be virtually handed to Musk in a stainless-steel platter to conduct his launches. But that changed with the EIS "revision to the FAA this year. Now there will not be 12 satellite launches a year. Instead, the beach will be used to test rocket components, a kind of low-budget backwater test site.
No 500 jobs at $55,000 a year as promised in 2012, but a handful of outside technicians and some welders and engineers to handle the hands-on jobs of welding the prototypes.
Not only will access the beach be at Musk's whim, but the establishment of a Border Patrol checkpoint on the way back from Boca Chica precludes many barrio residents without documentation from going there under fear of arrest and deportation.
So much for the millions spent by Cameron County for their launch amphitheater for the non-existent 15,000 tourists every month.
And the low impact on the environment promised in the IES to the FAA has now changed with Musk attempting to buy the homes of the Kopernik Shores subdivision as he tests larger rocket components that can shatter windows and hurt people's hearing. There has already been a fire that has burnt more than 100 acres of fragile wetlands, but there has also been chemical spills into the atmosphere.
It sounded too good to be true, remember? Well, it was, good for Musk, and not for us.