{"id":648,"date":"2026-11-02T14:56:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=648"},"modified":"2026-11-02T14:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:56:38","slug":"they-code-named-the-spaceport-and-called-it-duly-posted-vermilion-parish-police-jurors-plan-to-go-behind-closed-doors-on-nov-4-to-discuss-the-open-meetings-lawsuit-that-seeks-to-void-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=648","title":{"rendered":"THEY CODE-NAMED THE SPACEPORT AND CALLED IT DULY POSTED | Vermilion Parish police jurors plan to go behind closed doors on Nov. 4 to discuss the open-meetings lawsuit that seeks to void SpaceX\u2019s tax deal for its planned $100 billion Starbase Louisiana \u2014 a deal a board revived after nearly 30 years approved unanimously on Aug. 25 in under half an hour, with no public comment, under the agenda name \u2018Project Osprey,\u2019 announced, the suit says, by a one-page courthouse notice a day ahead, trading a property-tax exemption worth nearly $23.8 billion over 25 years for roughly $800 million in payments \u2014 about 3 cents on the dollar \u2014 hours before the governor announced it at an invitation-only event; the minutes say notice was \u2018duly posted and given in the manner provided by the Open Meetings Law\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They code-named the spaceport and called it duly posted. I know the phrase. Duly posted is what a public body writes in its own minutes when the notice went up on the one wall nobody reads, under a name nobody would recognize, for a meeting nobody from the public attended. It is technically a sentence about the law. It is actually a sentence about the door. I spent years at the You Know Who Post in a cardigan that cost more than a parish council member\u2019s annual stipend, writing gentle copy about \u201ceconomic development\u201d as if it were weather that happened to small places. I never asked who printed the forecast. These days I read every public number about property taxes with more personal interest than I\u2019d like, and this one is the biggest I have ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the record. The Vermilion Parish Police Jury\u2019s committees meet Wednesday, Nov. 4, the day after the election, and the Courthouse\/General Needs agenda lists an executive session \u2014 closed to the public \u2014 to discuss the lawsuit asking a court to void the parish\u2019s SpaceX tax agreement, The Vermilion Times reported Oct. 31, 2026, from the parish\u2019s own posted agendas. The same agenda lists a \u201cRequest for SpaceX Related Funding\u201d from the Vermilion Council on Aging, with no amount. The suit, filed Monday, Oct. 26, in the 15th Judicial District Court by the Vermilion Citizens Coalition and three residents, alleges eight Open Meetings Law violations, The Advocate\u2019s Alex Lubben reported. It says the police jury revived the parish\u2019s Industrial Development Board, inactive since 1997, by amending its July 15 agenda mid-meeting, and that on Aug. 25 the board approved a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with SpaceX for its planned $100 billion spaceport near Pecan Island \u2014 listed on the agenda only as \u201cProject Osprey,\u201d announced by a one-page notice posted at the courthouse 24 hours ahead, with no notice sent to the state as the law requires. The seven-member board approved it unanimously in less than half an hour with no public comment, hours before Gov. Jeff Landry announced the project at an invitation-only event behind barricades, the Louisiana Illuminator and Gulf States Newsroom\u2019s Drew Hawkins reported, citing recordings of the meetings. At the board\u2019s first meeting in July, its program counsel, Butler Snow lawyer Mike Busada, said a notice posted somewhere in the courthouse would do. \u201cBack door?\u201d a board member joked. \u201cDoesn\u2019t have to be the front door,\u201d Busada replied. The agreement trades property taxes for payments starting at $25 million a year and rising 2 percent annually for 25 years \u2014 about $800 million \u2014 plus $20 million for local infrastructure and $25 million for a charitable fund. The exemption alone is worth nearly $23.8 billion over 25 years; the payments cover about 3 cents of every dollar SpaceX would otherwise owe, by the newsroom\u2019s analysis, as part of what it calls the largest incentive package in state history, an estimated $27.5 billion. The suit puts the break at about $8 million for each of the 3,000 jobs SpaceX estimates. A notice of lease recorded less than two hours after the vote carries a SpaceX executive\u2019s signature dated Aug. 20, five days before it. The land came from ExxonMobil marsh the state acquired in a coastal-lawsuit settlement and sold to SpaceX for $100 million; SpaceX transferred it to the board, which leased it back. When plaintiffs asked for that settlement, parish counsel said the records had been delivered to the governor\u2019s office, according to the petition. Two police jurors who attended both board meetings had signed nondisclosure agreements for \u201cProject Osprey\u201d in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the defense, and there are several. The board\u2019s minutes say the Aug. 25 notice was \u201cduly posted and given in the manner provided by the Open Meetings Law.\u201d Landry\u2019s office says its executive counsel attended the July 15 meeting, that the Exxon settlement was approved in open session after an executive session, that courts ordered the settlement kept confidential, and that the parish\u2019s outside attorney has a copy. Landry defended the NDAs: \u201cYou think I want Texas to steal my thunder?\u201d Busada called the PILOT a \u201cphenomenal deal\u201d for the parish, and said the point was to \u201creally roll out the red carpet.\u201d The plaintiffs themselves say theirs \u201cis not a lawsuit against SpaceX or the Starbase\u201d; neither SpaceX nor the state is a defendant, and SpaceX did not respond to the Illuminator. Fine. Courts will decide the eight counts; these are allegations. But read the handshake. The state negotiated, the firm signed five days early, a dormant board was woken up to hold the pen, and the public\u2019s seat at the table was a sheet of paper on a courthouse wall under a bird\u2019s name. The state didn\u2019t fail to protect the parish from the company. It ran the meeting for the company and called it a notice. And now the response to a lawsuit about closed doors is, of course, a closed door. Both parties are the help. One brings the NDA. One brings the term sheet. The rocket brings the barricades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deb says if the church council had voted on the new fellowship hall under the code name \u201cProject Pelican\u201d with a note taped to the boiler room door, the Altar Guild would have rioted, and they\u2019d have been right. Buck says he\u2019d like three cents on the dollar on his property taxes and is prepared to change his name to Osprey. I love them. They are seasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuly posted\u201d is the alibi. The 3 cents is the story. Sit with it until it confesses. A parish signed its piece of the largest incentive package in its state\u2019s history in under thirty minutes, by a board raised from a thirty-year sleep, under a code name, with the public\u2019s only notice a page on a wall, and with the related land settlement carried back to the governor\u2019s office \u2014 and the lawsuit asking to have it done again in daylight is about to be discussed behind a door marked executive session. Maybe the court sends it back and the parish gets a better deal. I hope it does; the people of Pecan Island are the ones who will live under the launches. But a deal this big that could only survive in the dark is not development. It is a transfer with a press event. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask the Vermilion Parish Police Jury, out loud, at Wednesday\u2019s public comment period before the doors close: who wrote the \u201cfinal offers,\u201d why couldn\u2019t the public see the agenda\u2019s real name, and when the Council on Aging comes asking for \u201cSpaceX related funding,\u201d why is it asking at all, if the parish kept only 3 cents on the dollar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n