Commission Vote And Structure
Starbase, the company town created by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in South Texas, is moving to form its own police force after the city’s commission approved an ordinance during a special meeting on Tuesday to establish a municipal police department, pending approval from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
According to local outlet Valley Central, the department will be led by a chief of police chosen by the city’s commission and is expected to hire eight officers. The outlet reported that the department could begin operating within a few months. It is not clear whether Starbase has already submitted its application to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, and neither the city nor the commission responded to requests for comment. Starbase has reportedly hired security consulting firm Vision Quest Solutions to help build out the department.
“There is a lot of assets here with the operations of SpaceX,” Starbase city administrator Kent Myers told Valley Central. “Those assets need to be protected, and so the police department will play a critical part in protecting those assets.”
Why The City Wants Its Own Force
Starbase is the site where SpaceX builds and tests prototypes of its Starship rocket. The city is small, with only a few hundred residents, most of whom are SpaceX employees or family members, but it is geographically isolated. The nearest town, Brownsville, is about 10 miles away, and the drive can take 45 minutes or more.
The location and the presence of SpaceX facilities have shaped the city’s approach to public services. Myers said the assets connected to SpaceX operations were a factor in the decision to move toward a local police department rather than continue relying on outside agencies.
Background On Public Services
The police department would be the latest public service added since Starbase was incorporated as a city last year. In October, several SpaceX employees who live in Starbase started a volunteer fire department. Around the same time, the city created a fire marshal position and took over its own building inspections and permitting.
These steps marked a shift toward handling more municipal functions locally as the city developed its own administrative structure.
Shift From County Contract
Before approving the plan for a city police department, Starbase attempted to manage law enforcement by contracting with the Cameron County sheriff’s office. The city signed a five-year contract worth $3.5 million that was intended to provide two deputies on patrol at a time, with eight deputies assigned to the detail.
Starbase also reached an agreement last year with the sheriff’s office to use the county jail. Under that arrangement, the city agreed to pay $100 per day per inmate and to reimburse additional costs such as medical care.
The arrangement did not produce the results the city expected. “We didn’t have a lot of success in finding deputies through the county, so we decided to change direction,” Myers told Valley Central. Sheriff Manuel Treviño said the difficulty was due in part to the contract not including civil service protections.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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