PAAI

A lawsuit has been filed challenging how local officials approved a tax agreement for SpaceX’s planned $100 billion Starbase Louisiana, alleging multiple violations of the state’s public meetings laws.

According to a petition filed Monday in Louisiana’s 15th Judicial District Court, officials allegedly violated the state’s Open Meetings Law eight times while advancing the project.

The lawsuit was filed by the Vermilion Citizens Coalition and three local residents against the Vermilion Parish Industrial Development Board and Vermilion Parish Police Jury (via Louisiana Illuminator).

At the centre of the dispute is a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement approved on August 25, 2026, granting SpaceX a property tax exemption lasting 25 years.

The petition points to a reported $24 billion tax exemption, which works out to approximately $8 million per job based on SpaceX’s estimate of 3,000 jobs.

In exchange, SpaceX would make annual payments starting at $25 million, increasing 2% each year, totalling approximately $800 million over 25 years, according to a Gulf States Newsroom calculation.

The agreement also includes $20 million for local infrastructure improvements and another $25 million for a charitable fund.

However, the lawsuit focuses on how officials approved the agreement, rather than the proposed spaceport itself.

The plaintiffs allege officials improperly changed the agenda during a July 15, 2026 meeting to revive an industrial development board that had been inactive since 1997.

They also allege officials failed to livestream meetings, failed to send required meeting notices to the state, and concealed the SpaceX agreement under the code name “Project Osprey” on the August 25 agenda.

The board unanimously approved the agreement in less than 30 minutes, without public comment, hours before Governor Jeff Landry publicly announced the project.

“In Vermilion Parish, two government bodies appear to have had a pattern of doing everything they could to keep their decision-making secret from the public,” said William Most, the attorney representing the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to void the board’s August 25 decisions and award damages, legal costs, and attorney’s fees.

Melissa Hargrave of the community group Vermilion United noted that voiding the tax agreement would not undo the separate land sale and cooperative endeavour agreement SpaceX holds with the state.