The Disney Corporation ended its silence on Governor DeSantis’ decision, with the legislature, to dissolve the special district the state created for the entertainment giant more than 50 years ago. Disney’s lawyers let the Governor know that taxpayers in nearby districts would have to pick up the costs of public services that Disney pays for, but also its bond debt of more than $1 billion.
DeSantis wanted to punish Disney for criticizing his moronic “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But Florida taxpayers will have to pay the price of the governor’s vengeance.
The Miami Herald reports the message from Disney’s lawyers.
As Florida legislators were rushing through passage of a bill to repeal the special district that governs Walt Disney World last week, they failed to notice an obscure provision in state law that says the state could not do what legislators were doing — unless the district’s bond debt was paid off.
Disney, however, noticed and quietly sent a note to its investors to show that it was confident the Legislature’s attempt to dissolve the special taxing district operating the 39-square mile parcel it owned in two counties violated the “pledge” the state made when it enacted the district in 1967, and therefore was not legal.
The result, Disney told its investors, is that it would continue to go about business as usual.
The statement, posted on the website of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on April 21 by the Reedy Creek Improvement District, is the only public statement Disney has supplied since lawmakers unleashed their fury over the company’s vocal opposition to the “Parental Rights in Education” law, also known as the “don’t say gay” bill.
The statement, first reported by WESH 2, quotes the statute which says, in part, that the “State of Florida pledges…it will not limit or alter the rights of the District…until all such bonds together with interest thereon…are fully met and discharged…”
In essence, the state had a contractual obligation not to interfere with the district until the bond debt is paid off, said Jake Schumer, a municipal attorney in the Maitland law firm of Shepard, Smith, Kohlmyer & Hand, in an article for Bloomberg Tax posted on Tuesday and cited in a Law and Crime article.
The law passed by the Republican Legislature on a largely party-line vote, and signed into law by the Republican governor, either violates the contract clause of the Florida Constitution, or is incomplete, Schumer told the Herald/Times on Tuesday. If the Legislature wants to dismantle the Reedy Creek Improvement District, it has more work to do….
Schumer noted that the bill dissolving Reedy Creek doesn’t say what should happen to its debts, but another state law requires that by default the county assumes a district’s debt along with all of its assets when it is dissolved. “This means that theoretically, Orange and Osceola counties will inherit upward of $1 billion in bond debt,’’ he wrote in the Bloomberg Tax article….
When the state established the Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967 as an independent taxing district controlled by Walt Disney World, it gave it the power to build roads, sewers and utilities as well as the authority to set its zoning laws, establish its police and fire departments, and regulate its construction. The district can borrow money by issuing bonds to pay for services and that infrastructure and, while Disney must also pay property taxes to Orange and Osceola counties, the state also allows the Reedy Creek Improvement District to tax itself. The current tax rate is three times higher than the maximum amount allowed by cities and counties, Schumer said….
The Orange County tax collector said:
“Orange County gets Reedy Creek’s assets, debts and obligations,’’ he said. But the cost of providing its services is $105 million a year and the cost of its debt services is $58 million a year and so if Reedy Creek is dissolved those assets and liabilities would be absorbed by Orange County’s $600 million budget, he said.
Taxpayers in Orange County won’t be thanking DeSantis for their new tax bills.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article260783972.html#storylink=cpy
There are two possibilities here.
Could it be that DeSaytar knew all along that they could not legislate against Disney, and the new law will be quietly set aside by judicial fiat? That way he looks like a knight tilting against the Disney Dragon, even though he knew they could not do what the law does.
Or maybe the people who voted for this bill are just a bunch of incompetent political leaders filled with opprobrium.
We live in strange times when a giant multinational corporation with unlimited funds and power is morally superior to a putrid duplicitous politician. This is how far off the rails that the GOP has gone, the party of conspiracy theories, lies, distortions and slanders. The GOP that used to be the party of, by and for big business is attacking Disney, who would have thunk it. The GOP is still the party of big business, so long as the business goes along with all the crazies and craziness of the Republican far right wing cult.
Paul Krugman, quote: Not long ago, using state power to impose financial penalties on corporations for expressing political views you dislike would have been considered beyond the pale. Indeed, it may well be unconstitutional. But the attack on Disney has gone far beyond financial reprisal: Suddenly, Mickey Mouse is part of a vast conspiracy. Florida’s lieutenant governor went on Newsmax to accuse Disney of “indoctrinating” and “sexualizing children” with its “not secret agenda.”
If this seems crazy — which it is — it’s also increasingly the Republican norm. I don’t think political reporting has caught up with how thoroughly QAnonized the G.O.P. has become. end quote The GOP has become so radicalized that it will shoot itself in the foot in service to its nutty ideology (conspiracy theories ad infinitum). More scary is that large numbers of the population buy into and support all this lethal nonsense.
I had the same thought. Sooner or later strange political bedfellows awake to the dawn and look at their mate in horror.
nicely said
Who would have thought that so many Republicans would embrace Putin’s neo-fascism as some of the most eccentric members of the party have done? People like Gates and Taylor-Greene refused to censure Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/01/republican-party-trump-
Don’t cry for Disney before you read “Team Rodent,” by Carl Hiassen.
1998 expose?
So the state will just pay off the billion dollar debt and end disneys attempt at politics.
The voters are just itching to acquire another billion dollars in public debt.
I doubt that many are fooled by DeSatan. They like Disney and Mickey and the whole crew.
Diane, my daughter is a second grader and yesterday she brought home some books selected for her by the school about diversity. However, one of the books talks about two men living together and sleeping together and how its very normal. This is absolute and this is what Desantis is talking about in Fl. This is just plain crazy come on.
What is the name of the book?
Your daughter probably has classmates who have two daddies or two mommies.
She may not be as shocked as you are.
2nd grader!– What is the title of the book? I always like to check out the Amazon “look inside” feature, and read some review feedback to see what I think of it myself.
The book has penguins on the cover believe it or not. I will post the title later when I get home to retrieve the book.
Must be the delightful book “And Tango Makes Three.”
Don’t worry. It won’t make your daughter gay. She likely has classmates with two daddies or two mommies. How frightful for her!
Naked penguins? Penguin sex? Penguin lust? OMG! Perhaps your child will start to identify as a penguin. Oh, the horror!