WHY DOES BOCA CHICA ALWAYS SEEM TO ATTRACT SCAMMERS?

By Juan Montoya

When developers first looked at the empty stretches of sandy lomas and wetlands on the approach of Highway 4 to Boca Chica Beach, they hit on an idea.

Why not target elderly residents tired of living in the cold Midwest and offer them "waterfront" lots in sunny South Texas at "reasonable" prices?

And – believe it or not, we're not making this up – they targeted the Polish-American neighborhoods in Chicago to make their pitch. They called the future housing development "Kopernik Shores," in honor of Copernicus, the famed astronomer from Poland.

What they neglected to tell their marks was that none of the lots they were selling faced the beach, and in fact, were more than a mile from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Some of them did face the water, but it was the edge of the Laguna Madre. And some of the lots were actually under the waters of the laguna. Of course, those buyers had never seen the properties and bought them on installments, and blind faith.

Oh, yeah, and there was the small inconvenience that there was no potable water available for miles, the nearest being the water supplied by El Jardin Water Supply, some 18 miles away as the seagull flies.

Still, a few hardy souls made do with their purchase and others simply sold out to the lowest bidder and cut their losses.

Today – as it has for many years – Cameron County Pct. 1 delivers water from the Brownsville Public Utilities Board under a MOU for the resident's use for their domestic needs. They provide their own drinking water.

Then there was the famous Playa del Rio scam which planned to turn Boca Chica into a seaside resort with casinos, multi-storied hotels and theme park. Investors were lured by projected millions in profits only to learn after that nothing would come of it because of the lack of infrastructure like running water. It was only later that they learned that the developers were trying to get the PUB or El Jardin to extend their lines out to the beach.

That, of course would have cost the pubic millions that weren't available, and no amount of political manipulation could solve that problem. Even the machinations of then-state representative Eddie Lucio Jr. didn't convince the utilities or their boards to provide publicly-funded running water for the speculative project.

Now we have SpaceX and its government-subsidized billionaire Elon Musk. When Musk first came to South Texas, he said that he would build the first "commercial vertical launch site" in the country at Boca Chica. His advance men – the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation economic development gurus – gushed about the hundreds of permanent  jobs paying $75,000 and the thousands of indirect jobs and benefits to the depressed economic region.

By 2013, he said he would hire hundreds for each of the 12 monthly launches a year.

Now, these numbers are the ones given by SpaceX to the federal government in its Environmental Impact Statement. Then-BEDC's VP Gilbert Salinas and CEO Jason Hilt (and then-Mayor Tony Martinez and the commission) all said there would be 1,000s direct and well-paying indirect jobs each as a result of SpaceX establishing operations here.


Table 2.1-2. Personnel for Proposed SpaceX Texas Launch Site Operations

Year                      Full-time SpaceX                                   Full-time SpaceX
                            Employees/Contractors                           Employees/Contractors plus
                               Working On-Site                           Additional Local/Transient Workers
                                                                                         during Launch Campaigns

2013                                          30                                                       130
2014                                          75                                                       175
2015                                         100                                                      200
2016                                         100                                                      200
2017                                         110                                                      210
2018                                         130                                                      230
2019                                         150                                                      250
2020                                         150                                                      250
2021                                         150                                                      250
2022                                         150                                                      250

Now, as the local daily delicately puts it, those plans have "evolved."
The site was originally intended as a commercial spaceport, though the company’s plans for Boca Chica have evolved. Now Boca Chica is being used for testing and development of SpaceX’s next-generation, Mars-bound spacecraft, “Starship.”

SpaceX says that although it did not initially foresee “significant disruption” to residents of Boca Chica Village when Boca Chica Beach was first identified as a potential spaceport site several years ago, the company now realizes that disruption is becoming increasingly difficult to minimize, and therefore is extending buyout offers to property owners.

As the Herald reported: In a Sept. 12 letter sent to the less than a dozen residents of Boca Chica Village, also known as Kopernik Shores, the Hawthorne, Calif.-based rocket company expressed its interest in acquiring “certain residential properties ... located in and around the Kopernik Shores area within the designated South Texas Spaceport area at Boca Chica Beach.”


The company is offering property owners three times the appraised value of their properties, offers that are non-negotiable, and owners have two weeks from the date of the letter to decide whether to sell.

“SpaceX sincerely appreciates the tremendous support that it has received from the Boca Chica Village residents and the local community since the groundbreaking of its South Texas launch facility almost five years ago,” the letter reads.

 “Since then, SpaceX has sought to conduct its operations in a manner that minimizes disruption to the nearby residents of the Village to the extent practically possible.”

"Disruption" is an understatement.

On Aug. 24, at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration, Boca Chica residents received hand-delivered alerts from the county recommending that they evacuate the area before the scheduled launch, or at the very least exit their homes during the operation in the event of an “overpressure event” that could break windows in case of a rocket malfunction.

A low-altitude “hop” of the prototype on July 25 ignited a brush fire that spread into an adjacent wildlife refuge and eventually consumed 100 acres.

The letter continues that “it has become clear that expansion of spaceflight activities as well as compliance with (FAA) and other public safety regulations will make it increasingly more challenging to minimize disruption to residents of the Village.”

“Given the increased disruption to Boca Chica residents and our commitment to complying with public health and safety guidelines, SpaceX would like to acquire the properties located in the Boca Chica Village.”

The company said it is “committed to a fair and equitable process” and that it had commissioned independent appraisals of the fair market value of the properties and buildings based on their size and condition and comparable sales in the area.

“The amount of this offer is not negotiable,” according to the letter. “SpaceX believes that it is very important to offer the same deal to all residents using a consistent approach for determining the amount offered for each property. This is the fairest approach.”

City commissioner rose Gowen calls it a "win-win" situation and urged City Mayor Trey Mendez and Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño to encourage the residents there to sell. The last time we looked the Brownsville city limits didn't extend to Kopernik Shores, and neither does its Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction.

Local leaders have already approved the transfer of the public beach to the company and given it total control for access to be denied the public at its every whim. It's not Boca chica anymore. It's Elon's beach.

Now Musk wants to move out the remaining residents so he can have total control of the area. In effect, he would not only control access to the road to get to the beach. He would also control the entire area from the port channel jetties across South Padre Island to the mouth of the Rio Grande, a distance of about six miles.

And what would we get in return?

Cameron County now knows that the millions it spent building the amphitheater on Isla Blanca Park to see the monthly launches will never see the thousands of tourists that were expected because there have never been – nor will there ever be – satellite launches there.

And the "inspiration to our generations" from a test hop here and there seems (like her millions to be generated from her "active" tourism plan that took millions in public funds to build hike-and-bike trials and stage cyclobias in dying downtown) more pie-in-the-sky" wishful thinking.

And what if the residents don't want to sell? Will Musk make the county impose its eminent domain powers upon them to give him total control of the public beach and private properties?

Oh, Musk also sweetens the deal. If the residents sell, they can come over and watch some of the tests as VIPs.

The people out there have until Sept. 28 to accept the deal and there will be no negotiations on the price, mind you. He is scheduled to be here then to amaze the peasants and allow the to touch the hem of his "Starship."

If you thought the proponents of Playa del Rio were scammers, you haven't really been paying attention to what this Musk guy has been doing.