DeSantis Went to the Heart of Disney and Twisted the Knife Again
Ron DeSantis, unable to find a victory in his run for President, decided to pathetically celebrate his continuing persecution of Disney as a victory this morning in a press conference held in the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board headquarters (formerly the headquarters of the Reedy Creek Improvement District).
It was almost entirely lies.
DeSantis lectured his hand-picked, enthusiastic, crowd about how the removal of the Reedy Creek administration had resulted in “Good government and government reform” and he was going to show people just how it was all playing out as a triumph of Republicanism.
In slams against the Walt Disney Company — who seemingly had bent over backwards to try and lose their case against the governor and the new CFTOD Board, and who must now be surprised that the State of Florida is not backing off in kind — he called the former district an “anomaly in local government.”
There are over 1600 Special Tax Districts in Florida, many of whom still operate the same way that Reedy Creek did.
Repeatedly the Governor mentioned that the former district was formed prior to the ratification of the current State of Florida Constitution in 1968.
The alterations in Florida’s Constitution in 1968 involved apportioning state senators per county to comply with Federal Supreme Court mandates as well as to eliminate a ban of racially integrated schools. Nothing about this would’ve affected Reedy Creek in any way.
In a bizarre somersault over history and logic, DeSantis tried to explain that Disney had subverted the democratic process by never building promised residential sectors in the district.
There were “supposed to be people and homeowners and that just never happened” according to DeSantis.
What this seems to be in reference to is the original intention for EPCOT to be an actual residential city, but what the Governor is leaving out and hoping that no one else investigates is that EPCOT was supposed to be a prototype MODEL of a city. It would have residents, but the agreement that formed the original RCID was specifically designed to give Disney authority to change the model, with minimal input from the residents, to demonstrate new technologies.
It may or may not have ever worked, but the residents of EPCOT were never intended to be a democratic block. They were basically on-site employees.
To try and show the failure of the former district’s governing ability, the Governor fell back on his familiar old tropes.
“The amount of special treatment and exemptions was unbelievable.”
This seems to be in reference to the free park passes that were given out to members of the fire department, though it was vague.
“Tax breaks.”
Perhaps the biggest and most repeated lie in DeSantis’ vendetta against Disney is that the company got tax breaks because of the district.
They did not. They paid state and county taxes just like everyone else and then also paid INCREASED taxes to the special district. They did this in order to receive a level of services — roads, water treatment, refuse, etc. — that was beyond what a county or city could normally afford to provide.
Disney’s taxes have gone down due to the reformed district, but not, as DeSantis would have people believe, because of more efficient governmental oversight. The services received have just gotten worse.
“The monorail had never been inspected.”
Obviously nonsense. The State, this year, simply formed a new organization whose entire point was to inspect one thing, the Walt Disney World monorail, and THAT organization is inspecting it for the first time. There was no reason for it as that train line is inspected constantly, far more than any other Florida mode of transport, but DeSantis wanted to be able to threaten Disney with shutting it down.
“They could eminent domain outside the district boundaries.”
DeSantis is saying here that the Reedy Creek Improvement District could’ve seized homes from residents outside of their district. He must have true contempt for every one of his constituents if he thinks that anyone believes that.
Also, per new district Magistrate Drew Crawford, “I don’t believe there was a code enforcement program prior to this year.”
Of course building and employment codes are statewide; so who’s responsible for doing the inspections, exactly?
Speaking of Drew Crawford, much hubbub was made about the new bidding process for new municipal work in the district. The Governor and Florida Secretary of Commerce J. Alex Kelly continually pointed out that over 600 persons or organizations had signed up on their web portal to “Do Business With the District.” Whether any of these are actually being hired to do work there wasn’t mentioned, except in the case of Drew Crawford.
Crawford is an attorney who represents government entities against lawsuits and has a specialty in defending them from civil rights cases; like, perhaps, a certain Free Speech case wandering through the federal courts right now?
That’s right, the single instance that DeSantis could come up with of a new business that’s come into central Florida is an attorney that can protect them from Disney which he has hired as the district’s “magistrate.”
DeSantis then decided to take victory lap around his detractors, but to do it, he had to lie about what he had actually done.
About critics of the new District he said, “People said that taxes were going to go up, but look at this today. That was a total red herring,” and that “Municipal debt would be passed on.”
When people suggested that taxes in Orange and Osceola counties would go up and that the RCID’s bond debt would be passed on to the taxpayer, it was when DeSantis had submitted his FIRST bill which was to entirely dissolve the special district altogether. This seemed like a strange sort of temper tantrum on the Governor’s part because he seemed to not understand what would happen if he did that; as if he’d never bothered to learn how his own state’s special tax districts work.
Had Reedy Creek simply been erased, about a billion dollars in bond debt would’ve had to be taken over by the state and all of the municipal services that run Walt Disney World would’ve fallen on the counties to provide, hence the higher taxes.
Someone, evidently, explained this to the Governor and he retracted that bill in favor of another one that would simply rename the district and populate its board with DeSantis appointees.
Then the gloves came off and they attacked Disney more directly.
Martin Garcia, Head of the new board:
“The former entity, the Reedy Creek Improvement District was the most egregious example of corporate cronyism in modern American political history.”
Surprising thing to say given that he sits as president of an un-elected governing board of a district he doesn’t live in. And also that, in violation of Florida’s Constitution, DeSantis gave the chairman of Florida’s ETHICS commission a $400,000,000-per-year job with the Central Florida board.
“Tax dollars were used exclusively for the Disney company.”
The tax dollars that Disney almost exclusively paid were used almost exclusively for Disney who are, almost exclusively, the residents of the district, yeah.
Mandy “the Momma Bear” Shafer (mother who has been trotted out by DeSantis several times):
“I will never lose hope that Walt Disney’s ideals will be restored and that the woke ideology will be destroyed forever. Woke ideologies are robbing our family traditions.”
She has regurgitated this applause line over and over at DeSantis events for several years now. Does anyone care about this rhetoric anymore? The Walt Disney Company spoke out in the meekest possible way against a bigoted law that is destroying people’s lives in Florida. They were right to do so.
The meeting then devolved into DeSantis discussing his victory over Disney in the courts, how they are ignoring the restrictive covenant contract that the previous board put in just before leaving, bizarre theories about people in Reedy Creek being kicked out of their homes and even an intimation that Disney was trying to help human traffickers.
The whole thing was a self-congratulatory orgy meant to remind the public and Disney of DeSantis’ supreme authority in Florida.
Meanwhile the state is being battered by violent weather repeatedly, insurance companies are fleeing, school teachers are fleeing (to the extent that the state is recruiting police and military personnel to fill-in at schools) and the NAACP and Human Rights Campaign (with Equality Florida) have issued warnings not to travel to the state due to fears of persecution.
But sure, Ron, this Disney thing is your priority.
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