Musk Is About to Get His Own Company Town

Starbase is about to become the newest city in Texas—and in the age when company towns were more prevalent, it might've been called Muskville. Almost all of the 283 registered voters in SpaceX's site at the southern tip of Texas are SpaceX employees, so the outcome of a vote on incorporating the 1.5-square mile site as a municipality is not in doubt, CNN reports. Voting began last week and will conclude on Saturday.

• Candidates are unopposed. The Texas Tribune reports that there are no yard signs or other signs of a campaign in the community around 20 miles east of Brownsville. The candidates for mayor and two city commissioner positions, all current or former SpaceX employees, are running unopposed. The candidate for mayor is 36-year-old Bobby Peden.

• Inside Starbase. Bloomberg reports that near its huge production facility, SpaceX "owns hundreds of lots with homes painted in its signature colors of white, gray, and black, as well as a fleet of Airstream trailers. Lawns are tidy. Teslas dot the curbs and driveways. Security cameras and 'no trespassing' signs are everywhere." SpaceX security vans patrol the area and they have been known to confront outsiders, Bloomberg reports.
• Memes Street. The AP reports that the polling site is on Memes Street. Records show that Elon Musk owns a house on the same street. Other street names in the community are more conventional.
• Concerns. Jared Hockema, city manager of nearby Port Isabel and chair of the Cameron County Democratic Party, tells CNN that he believes the push for city status could be an attempt to dodge regulations. "Nobody is against progress," he says. "It's a great company, great innovation. There's a lot of good people working there. They do a good job. But are they respecting the public interest in everything they do?"

• Beach access is a worry. Longtime area residents say they're worried that access to Boca Chica Beach, a public state park near the SpaceX launch site, will be further restricted. The popular fishing area, long known as the "poor people's beach," is already closed on launch days, the AP reports. This week, a state House panel rejected a bill that would have transferred authority over closing the beach from the county to the new city.
• Supporters. Eddie Trevino Jr., the county judge who issued the order allowing the vote on incorporation, tells CNN that SpaceX has been great for the county. "Cape Canaveral was a sleepy little community back in the early '60s when it was selected to be the launching site for the Apollo missions," he says. "We hope this continues to be a win-win. The number of jobs, the pay, the attention, the development, the energy, the excitement has been a net positive."
• A holdout. One of the few remaining pre-SpaceX residents, 75-year-old Homer Pompa, tells Bloomberg that he moved to the area in the 1970s and it used to be so quiet "you could walk naked down this road." SpaceX is building homes on either side of his property but he has rejected offers to sell. "They want to take it from me," he says. "I want to die here. This is, like, I finally found my happiness."

(More Starbase stories.)