Does “defending a industrial spaceport setting,” together with “important infrastructure and high-value know-how property,” in a neighborhood “formed by aerospace exercise, coastal ecology, and a pioneering spirit of exploration” sound like your dream job? Effectively why not apply to be the “future chief of police” of Elon Musk’s firm city in Texas?
As famous in a narrative last month on ValleyCentral.com, which is affiliated with Brownsville, Texas space TV information station KGBT, town of Starbase (sure, it’s an actual, integrated metropolis) authorised an ordinance (sure, it has the authority to make legal guidelines) establishing a municipal police division. That can embody a chief of police and eight officers, with that chief, in accordance with ValleyCentral, elected by town’s fee.
To that finish, apparently, town simply printed a job listing looking for candidates for a job titled “Public Security Director / Future Chief of Police.” The relatively puzzling hybrid title might stem from the sheer pace at which the institutional trappings of a metropolis are being assembled in Starbase. The town was integrated about ten months in the past, has a mayor, and shall be holding an election on Could 2 of this yr according to its website.
ValleyCentral makes it sound like policing is a considerably pressing matter in Starbase as a result of a $3.5 million contract with the Cameron County Sheriff fell by means of. What have been meant to be five-year positions as Starbase-based deputies weren’t interesting to potential recruits. Metropolis Administrator Kent Myers instructed ValleyCentral “We didn’t have a variety of success to find deputies by means of the county, so we determined to vary course.”
The job advert says this place will contain making a “future-ready workforce” that can prioritize, “Integrating superior know-how and analytics into operations.” Starbase’s ultimate applicant, the advert says, is a “visionary, moral, and revolutionary chief with unquestioned integrity.”
However that ultimate candidate may also “thrive in a startup-like setting.”
As for what the sociological image seems like within the space for somebody contemplating being high cop there, the very first thing to remember is that it’s a brief drive from the Mexican border the place, as of 2026, drug trafficking remains an issue of concern at the federal level. And in accordance with a report from 2023, Cameron County was on the record of the 45 counties (out of 254 counties complete) in Texas thought-about to be in poverty.
Nearer to Starbase, there was considerable agitation over SpaceX’s control of an ostensibly public beach, and a statue of Elon Musk in the area was vandalized last year. So social unrest as a result of dislike of SpaceX and Elon Musk seem to be potential areas of concern.
Nevertheless it’s presumptuous to try to paint an image of the crime scenario in Starbase as a result of it’s in some ways nonetheless only a development website. The inhabitants was about 500 as of last year, which is the approximate standing capacity of a Cheesecake Factory. And the infrastructure to assist a police division isn’t even in place but in Starbase. TechCrunch observed some authorities filings final month exhibiting that the city will likely soon have a courthouse. Widespread sense-wise, it stands to purpose {that a} jail will quickly comply with.
