murphyag said:

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Im Gipper said:

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I'm on Team DeSantis on this fight, and definitely fall in the "ignorant of the background facts" on this one!

I thought there were lots of special districts, but Disney is the only theme park with one. Is that correct? Thanks in advance!

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Sea World in Florida is a special district

Universal Orlando sits in a portion of a special district.

If I'm remembering correctly, the theme parks in Tampa aren't in a special district.

My uncle lives in the huge residential area called The Villages. It is a special district.

Daytona 500 racing area is in a special district

There are so many special districts in Florida that it is hard to keep up with.

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Not all special districts are created equal.

Reedy Creek had powers that none of the others did...

Ag with kids said:

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murphyag said:

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Im Gipper said:

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I'm on Team DeSantis on this fight, and definitely fall in the "ignorant of the background facts" on this one!

I thought there were lots of special districts, but Disney is the only theme park with one. Is that correct? Thanks in advance!

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Sea World in Florida is a special district

Universal Orlando sits in a portion of a special district.

If I'm remembering correctly, the theme parks in Tampa aren't in a special district.

My uncle lives in the huge residential area called The Villages. It is a special district.

Daytona 500 racing area is in a special district

There are so many special districts in Florida that it is hard to keep up with.

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Not all special districts are created equal.

Reedy Creek had powers that none of the others did...

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No, Reedy Creek had no powers that weren't distributed to at least one more of the other districts. The difference is Reedy Creek had more of those powers than any other district. The other difference is the PV of the impact of the increased economic activity in the region due to the actions of Disney can be measures in the trillions of dollars.

Bill Clinternet said:

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It is breathtaking how many First Amendment experts there are on this board. We have videos published by Right Wing Politcial Hacks, claims of Roger Rabbit level mystery fraud that no one can provide a link and key board lawyers stating "Disney doesn't have a case" where virtually every First Amendment Expert across the country say otherwise.

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Where did you go to law school?

FL_Ag1998 said:

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I'm gonna state it once again because most people seem ignorant of the fact or, like the media, choose to downplay this key part..... Disney didn't just say they disagreed with the Parental Rights law. They said they were going to devote themselves to actively working to repeal it. That's a big difference from simply saying you disagree with it. They threw the gauntlet down first and Desantis wasn't afraid to pick it up.

MurphyAg I respect your opinion and understand where you're coming from, but from what you've mentioned about where you live here in Florida, yeah I don't expect those communities to give much thought about the long-term effects of everyday things like what's being taught in schools or immigration. Yeah, those communities are primarily concerned with insurance rates on their vacation homes and condos, etc. and not much else.

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There a many full time residents on Sanibel. Many of them have young children. We have the Sanibel School for grades K-8. It is one of the best schools in the state.

Kudlow has a good take on all this at this point. He said DeSantis needs to resolve it and points that DJT would have met with Igor and hammered this out behind closed doors. Probably would have told them to put a most glorious, big beautiful pedestrian bridge in many shades of green over Floridian Way as well.

You could have punished Disney by retrading the Reedy Creek deal making several, half whatever board positions of Reedy be appointed by the State of Florida, taken away some of their powers, and told them no company sponsored / affiliated PACs in State of Florida.

Again, Disney started this and ultimately deserves what it gets. But… there is a deal to be made and RonD would be wise to make it.

fka ftc said:

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Kudlow has a good take on all this at this point. He said DeSantis needs to resolve it and points that DJT would have met with Igor and hammered this out behind closed doors. Probably would have told them to put a most glorious, big beautiful pedestrian bridge in many shades of green over Floridian Way as well.

You could have punished Disney by retrading the Reedy Creek deal making several, half whatever board positions of Reedy be appointed by the State of Florida, taken away some of their powers, and told them no company sponsored / affiliated PACs in State of Florida.

Again, Disney started this and ultimately deserves what it gets. But… there is a deal to be made and RonD would be wise to make it.

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Then Trump would have missed the real underlying point here that is the win. Disney is being scared out of getting involved in issues like this going forward and other companies (combined with the Bud Light issue that Trump also took the wrong side on) are watching this carefully. These are issues the conservatives have the high ground on and you are basically saying Trump would do all he could to end the issue so Disney can go right back to supporting Democrat issues and politicians with impunity and declaring victory.

I don't think this is how this started but it is what DeSantis is going to do now. Disney is going to have to grovel to him and not the other way around at this point. The example is being shown that DeSantis will hit you hard if you try to play these kinds of games with him and other GOP pols should take notice instead of just continuing to cede that ground to the Left. This is how you fight back against ESG and corporate wokeness, it's amazing how so many "conservatives" just want to surrender because there is risk.

As someone who does construction work all over the state, including in Reedy Creek, The Villages, etc. I can attest that NO OTHER SPECIAL DISTRICT IS BUILT LIKE REEDY CREEK.

I mean, Reedy Creek is the only special District I've ever seen push back on the South Florida Water Management District (a state agency) when it came to construction permitting and say, "No, we don't have to provide answers to you or do things on your timetable. We do things how we want to do them." And the WMD didn't argue with them after that. Every other agency I've seen defers to the WMD that they're located in.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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As someone who does construction work all over the state, including in Reedy Creek, The Villages, etc. I can attest that NO OTHER SPECIAL DISTRICT IS BUILT LIKE REEDY CREEK.

I mean, Reedy Creek is the only special District I've ever seen push back on the South Florida Water Management District (a state agency) when it came to construction permitting and say, "No, we don't have to provide answers to you or do things on your timetable. We do things how we want to do them." And the WMD didn't argue with them after that. Every other agency I've seen defers to the WMD that they're located in.

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People really do not understand how unique Florida is. And how much of the Reedy Creek crap was basically the last Company Town.

But none of that changes the fact that it's unconstitutional for a governmental unit to exercise its power in retaliation of the exercise of first amendment rights. That's not unsettled or controversial in any way.

The government absolutely has the power to exercise its powers to change or eliminate special districts, but not because it's punishing that district for speech meatball Ron doesn't like. This is going to sink him if he can't sweep it under the rug somehow.

blacksox said:

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But none of that changes the fact that it's unconstitutional for a governmental unit to exercise its power in retaliation of the exercise of first amendment rights. That's not unsettled or controversial in any way.

The government absolutely has the power to exercise its powers to change or eliminate special districts, but not because it's punishing that district for speech meatball Ron doesn't like. This is going to sink him if he can't sweep it under the rug somehow.

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First of all, we know you have no concern for DeSantis. You're a leftist through and through. If Newsom did the same thing to a company in California, you'd be cheering for him.

Second, lots of words to tell us you haven't read any of this thread, because if you had, you would have been educated that what Florida did was not retaliation nor did it suppress Disney's 1st Amendment rights.

blacksox said:

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But none of that changes the fact that it's unconstitutional for a governmental unit to exercise its power in retaliation of the exercise of first amendment rights. That's not unsettled or controversial in any way.

The government absolutely has the power to exercise its powers to change or eliminate special districts, but not because it's punishing that district for speech meatball Ron doesn't like. This is going to sink him if he can't sweep it under the rug somehow.

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LOL

If the unconstitutional bit had any legs, it would been option A for Disney to protest and it would be all we hear about this.

Since it is not all we hear about, one can easily surmise that what Florida did in taking over Reedy Creek was constitutional.

That's some solid logic right there. Love it.

blacksox said:

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That's some solid logic right there. Love it.

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You discussing logic is hilarious.

Did Reedy Creek cause a default of the bond issuances?

I watched it and its interesting, but is his basis for default more on Disney not building communities and just theme parks? Golden Oak and Celebration are both communities and another one is in the works. I would also think the DVC properties would count as residential development.

I think the issue is the district is no longer being considered public with Disney's 11th hour move. THis puts the bonds under the ownership (maybe?) of a private corporation which puts the bonds more at risk.

fka ftc said:

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I watched it and its interesting, but is his basis for default more on Disney not building communities and just theme parks? Golden Oak and Celebration are both communities and another one is in the works. I would also think the DVC properties would count as residential development.

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I believe there's an article linked in this thread that explains how Disney very carefully and intentionally carved out the land that Celebration is situated on right before they built it. So Celebration actually falls under the local County jurisdiction and not (former) Reedy Creek jursidiction because of that carve out. I can't speak for the other other entities but if they were handled like Celebration then no, they're not technically in the Reedy Creek District and Disney has technically failed to establish residential properties on their land. At least that was the gist of the article.

fka ftc said:

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I watched it and its interesting, but is his basis for default more on Disney not building communities and just theme parks? Golden Oak and Celebration are both communities and another one is in the works. I would also think the DVC properties would count as residential development.

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DeSantis was putting more emphasis on the lack of cities with residents. That's the weaker argument, in my view.

Andrew emphasizes that treating Reedy Creek as the alter ego of Disney, negates the requirement that Reedy Creek be independent for purposes of a bond issuance and sales. These bonds could be down graded by the rating agencies as a result prompting lawsuits from the bondholders for material misstatements in the offering.

That's what happens when the General Counsel (for decades) of Disneyworld is hired to be Special Counsel for Reedy Creek and he signs the certification that Reedy Creek is an independent body separate from Disney.

Now there are a few intermediate steps that could or could not occur but the risk for Disney here is that they have to pay off the billion in bonds as a default has occurred or have liens placed on all of their property.

Another issue is the status of their case against Florida and DeSantis. On one hand they are claiming a 1st amendment violation as if they are one and the same as Reedy Creek since that is the only entity that Florida has taken action on. OTOH, that's an admission to securities fraud on the issuance of the bonds.

Disney screwed themselves, big time.

Thanks Hawg, that's the vibe I was getting at the first part then he went off into the community development aspect.

Its an understated conundrum... Disney has long relied on RCID being independent of the mouse in order to maintain their special protections / exemptions. Then when its taken away its "but your punishing Disney", with the response being "no, we decided to rework this entity that is supposed to be independent of Disney."

DeSantis has a great bit of leverage over Disney at the moment. Its a win win to work a deal getting what he wants for Florida, making Disney cede some things, and letting Disney quietly retreat and get back to the business of theme parks and movies.

You got it.

And this is further indication DeSantis needs to work towards a Disney resolution. I don't know enough about the role to know if the salary is justified, it may very well be / probably is. But $400,000 sounds like a lot of money and a similar figure is tossed around by Biden and friends with the "no new taxes except for the very rich".

DeSantis should resolve or distance himself from this as it may quickly go from being a winner to a big loser for him potentially.


https://www.wdwmagic.com/other/reedy-creek-improvement-district/news/09may2023-ron-desantis-ally-glen-gilzean-to-be-paid-a-400,000-salary-to-be-new-administrator-of-walt-disney-worlds-governing-district-.htm

fka ftc said:

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Thanks Hawg, that's the vibe I was getting at the first part then he went off into the community development aspect.

Its an understated conundrum... Disney has long relied on RCID being independent of the mouse in order to maintain their special protections / exemptions. Then when its taken away its "but your punishing Disney", with the response being "no, we decided to rework this entity that is supposed to be independent of Disney."

DeSantis has a great bit of leverage over Disney at the moment. Its a win win to work a deal getting what he wants for Florida, making Disney cede some things, and letting Disney quietly retreat and get back to the business of theme parks and movies.

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I think this is a great, concise way to state the issue.

Disney may be whining, but DeSantis and the FL Legislature never took any action against them...so what's their problem?

But then he appoints a good pal to lead the district getting paid what will be described in the media as a kings ransom.

He has to always keep the focus and n Disney being the problem. The longer he tries that, the more opportunity he has to step in it.

Quote:

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But then he appoints a good pal to lead the district getting paid what will be described in the media as a kings ransom.

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John Klasse was making $332K in 2021 running RCID.

RCID Admin Salary in 2021

I would expect a pretty high compensation. But it doesn't matter if its "appropriate" or not, Average Joe is going to see $400k/yr to DeSantis "pal" and likely not have a positive reaction.

Its how his detractors can spin it not whether its logical.

fka ftc said:

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I would expect a pretty high compensation. But it doesn't matter if its "appropriate" or not, Average Joe is going to see $400k/yr to DeSantis "pal" and likely not have a positive reaction.

Its how his detractors can spin it not whether its logical.

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He could appoint Joe Biden at a salary of $1/year and the media will report it as "pretty high compensation to a DeSantis pal".

Truth.

Two short clips from Andrew.

Lol

Disney’s stock is down massively today as the collapse of cable & satellite combined with the end of streaming growth has Disney screwed in both directions. Only the amusement parks are saving them right now. Look at this ten year chart. Look at the ten year chart. Almost no… pic.twitter.com/iG7zqfLw2Z

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 11, 2023

Some background from Andrew. Less than 12 minute clip.