Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says the state will likely take control of Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District

May 16, 2022 in "The Walt Disney Company"

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Posted: Monday May 16, 2022 1:04pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

At an event in Sanford this morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the state would likely take control of Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Since the Governor signed the bill dissolving Reedy Creek Improvement District last month, many questions have been raised about how dissolving the district will be achieved in practice and if any debt will be passed onto the local Orange and Osceola counties.

He said today, "The path forward is, Disney will not control its own government in the state of Florida. Disney will have to follow the same laws that every other company has to follow in the state of Florida. They will pay their share of taxes, and they will be responsible for paying the debts."

Despite his comments this morning, DeSantis has still not laid out a clear plan to dissolve Reedy Creek. He said today that his plan would be presented to the legislature after the November 2022 elections, which leaves very little time before the June 1 2023 termination date.

The creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967 allowed Disney the luxury of establishing its own independent government that handles many aspects of the Walt Disney World property, including emergency services, infrastructure, and construction permitting.

These latest developments follow escalating tensions between DeSantis and Disney CEO Bob Chapek regarding Disney's opposition to Florida's HB 1557, also known as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

Disney's Bob Chapek has yet to make any public comments on the situation regarding Reedy Creek Improvement District.

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peter1143526 minutes ago

By that logic why do we bother having elections for mayors and city councils? Why not just let the governor appoint those too. Why stop there. Just let the president appoint governors too. After all we got to elect the president so we still had a vote.

mikejs788 hours ago

There are many issues with FL law with what the state did. Trouble is the courts in FL are stacked with DeSantis appointees.

Disstevefan19 hours ago

On the other hand, the "residents" of RCID were hand picked by Disney. There were two little cul-de-sacks of mobile homes within the district and those were the hand picked residents of RCID.

JoeCamel9 hours ago

You elect the governor and they appoint the board so you still have a vote. In any case I think that would be a federal complaint not one tried in the state courts

tecowdw9 hours ago

On thing I've always wondered why it wasn't mentioned by Disney... The CFTOD board is 100% appointed by the State with no representation from the actual land owners within the municipality. They have no voting rights to pick who represents them on the board. Now I realize that was kind of the point of the whole political issue but how is that not unconstitutional - taxation without representation? Doesn't every municipality have to do general elections to pick their board representatives? Even RCID did that.

tecowdw9 hours ago

Just goes to show that the whole thing was just a political stunt. Now that the political steam has ran out on this issue, it actually operates like it is suppose to. A good sign that maybe CFTOD and Disney can live amicably after all. And I'm sure they definitely will once the remnants of Desantis and his original board cronies are all long gone and forgotten. It was always a given that Disney would be around long after those political individuals' "15 seconds of fame" ended. I wonder if Garcia, the vocal Disney critic, leaving the board was part of a back room deal to get Disney to drop their lawsuits and renegotiate the RCID development agreement. Maybe that's also how an experienced new administrator got put in place as well. I can't imagine Disney just relinquished all of it's lawsuits/agreements without ensuring they had something valuable in return since they are +80% of the district's tax base in land ownership. They just aren't that stupid! ;) At the end of the day, while Disney lost control of their municipality, it's in everyone's best interest to work together for the common goal of bringing tourist dollars in to the maximum potential. Central Florida could be a very different place had Disney not been able to expand their operations for 51 years with RCID.

GoneViral1 day ago

Happy days are here again.

MR.Dis1 day ago

I just read a report that the CFTOD meeting was a boring managing the district business, just like the old RCID days. No protests and very little attendance. No mention of the pending negotiation of the developement agreement.

DCBaker3 days ago

The agenda and documents for the CFTOD Board of Supervisors meeting is now available at the link below. Included in this packet are documents related to the FY2023 Annual Financial Statement presentation and an annual audit by Cherry Bekaert, LLP. As a head's up, the meeting has shifted an hour from previous times - it is scheduled to begin at 10:30am. https://www.oversightdistrict.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BOS-Meeting-Packet-4-24-24-Final-P.pdf

flynnibus8 days ago

Looks to be moved https://www.oversightdistrict.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BOS-Meeting-04-24-24-Agenda-Outline.pdf

wdwmagic8 days ago

Amazing, there is actually some real business on the agenda for a change.

DCBaker8 days ago

The agenda outline for the next CFTOD meeting on Wednesday, April 24 is available at this link*: https://www.oversightdistrict.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BOS-Meeting-04-24-24-Agenda-Outline.pdf *Edited to update as the link was changed after posting (thanks @flynnibus!).

flyakite10 days ago

Batman'sParents13 days ago

Was curious about this: Is there an expectation that CFTOD will delegate some responsibilities to the cities as part of the understanding between the state and Disney?