News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

LAKid53

LAKid53

Official Member of the Girly Girl Fan Club
Premium Member
disneyglimpses said:
I highly doubt formal negotiations are taking place just yet. But Disney has something like 40 lobbyists in Florida who have known all of the prominent Florida politicians for years. There is no doubt they are bickering back and forth trying to figure out what a deal may look like when formal negotiations do begin.
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Except Florida does have term limits, so some are no longer in the Florida Legislature.
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
drizgirl said:
Care to summarize since it’s behind a paywall?
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Some highlights from the Financial Times article:
  • Early on, Disney had an opportunity to sign a letter protesting the Parental Rights in Education Act. Several companies such as Apple and Amazon had signed this letter.
  • Now fired Disney head of corporate affairs Geoff Morrell advised Disney CEO Bob Chapek not to sign.
  • Instead, Morrell recommended working through Disney's "formidable team of 38 lobbyists in Florida" to "soften" the bill.
  • In the past, Disney had been used to getting its way with Florida legislators but this time they were "surprise[d] to see that Disney’s efforts to water down the bill were not working."
  • Former CEO Bob Iger made matters worse by retweeting President Biden, who called the bill "hateful".
  • As a result of Disney's lack of public action, the considerable goodwill Disney had with its LGBTQ+ employees was damaged.
  • Chapek went on a “listening tour” to various company locations to try to repair that damage.
  • DeSantis used Disney's belated public statements to attack the "woke" Disney. DeSantis said, Disney is “going to criticize the fact that we don’t want transgenderism in kindergarten and first grade classrooms . . . that’s the hill they’re going to die on?”
  • The $100K Disney donated to DeSantis is chump-change compared to the $50M he has collected elsewhere. In other words, Disney has no bargaining leverage with DeSantis at the moment.
  • "Chapek has been in course-correction mode ever since."
  • Chapek fired Disney's head of tv Peter Rice to strengthen Chapek's position within Disney. (Rice is popular and was viewed as a possible replacement to Chapek.)
  • The Board strengthened Chapek's position further by backing Chapek in this firing.
  • GSU Professor Anthony Kreis, who specializes in civil rights and politics, is quoted as saying, “The issues around Disney are going to get litigated ad nauseam" during the campaign, ... "There’s no winning strategy here for them.”
  • A former Disney executive is quoted as saying, “In a short period of time they managed to p*** off both the left and the right.”
 
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GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
LAKid53 said:
Except Florida does have term limits, so some are no longer in the Florida Legislature.
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In a way the term limits make the lobbyists even more powerful since the lobbyists themselves have no term limits. They become the constant in the political system. A continuous influx of new blood needing help with the lay of the land and also needing money for re-election without name recognition. Not saying I’m opposed to term limits at all.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Some highlights from the Financial Times article:
  • Early on, Disney had an opportunity to sign a letter protesting the Parental Rights in Education Act. Several companies such as Apple and Amazon had signed this letter.
  • Now fired Disney head of corporate affairs Geoff Morrell advised Disney CEO Bob Chapek not to sign.
  • Instead, Morrell recommended working through Disney's "formidable team of 38 lobbyists in Florida" to "soften" the bill.
  • In the past, Disney had been used to getting its way with Florida legislators but this time they were "surprise[d] to see that Disney’s efforts to water down the bill were not working."
  • Former CEO Bob Iger made matters worse by retweeting President Biden, who called the bill "hateful".
  • As a result of Disney's lack of public action, the considerable goodwill Disney had with its LGBTQ+ employees was damaged.
  • Chapek went on a “listening tour” to various company locations to try to repair that damage.
  • DeSantis used Disney's belated public statements to attack the "woke" Disney. DeSantis said, Disney is “going to criticize the fact that we don’t want transgenderism in kindergarten and first grade classrooms . . . that’s the hill they’re going to die on?”
  • The $100K Disney donated to DeSantis is chump-change compared to the $50M he has collected elsewhere. In other words, Disney has no bargaining leverage with DeSantis at the moment.
  • "Chapek has been in course-correction mode ever since."
  • Chapek fired Disney's head of tv Peter Rice to strengthen Chapek's position within Disney. (Rice is popular and was viewed as a possible replacement to Chapek.)
  • The Board strengthened Chapek's position further by backing Chapek in this firing.
  • GSU Professor Anthony Kreis, who specializes in civil rights and politics, is quoted as saying, “The issues around Disney are going to get litigated ad nauseam" during the campaign, ... "There’s no winning strategy here for them.”
  • A former Disney executive is quoted as saying, “In a short period of time they managed to p*** off both the left and the right.”
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I think this about sums up part of the situation. There were certainly missteps by Disney. That doesn’t excuse the actions of the Government one bit.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
Brian said:
www.wftv.com

Disneyâs Reedy Creek bond trading spikes after DeSantis dissolution drama

The state of Florida’s impending dissolution of Walt Disney World’s (NYSE: DIS) Reedy Creek Improvement District has spiked trade activity among bond holders.
www.wftv.com www.wftv.com
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I can’t see the actual story but I know we talked about the big sell off on RCID bonds that resulted in the price dropping well below par. Are they saying the bond prices are going back up? Could be a sign that the financial community views that there will be a positive outcome for the district.
 
Vacationeer

Vacationeer

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
ParentsOf4 said:
  • GSU Professor Anthony Kreis, who specializes in civil rights and politics, is quoted as saying, “The issues around Disney are going to get litigated ad nauseam" during the campaign, ... "There’s no winning strategy here for them.”
Click to expand...
Who is the ‘them’ to which there’s no winning strategy?
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
Vacationeer said:
Who is the ‘them’ to which there’s no winning strategy?
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Quoting that part of the article:

Chapek will need all the support he can get. With the midterm elections looming in November, issues including race, abortion, guns and LGBTQ rights will dominate the debate on the left and right. This means the image of “woke” Disney is likely to remain in the political spotlight, says Anthony Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University.​
​
“The issues around Disney are going to get litigated ad nauseam” during the campaign, says Kreis, who writes about civil rights and politics. “There’s no winning strategy here for them.”​

My interpretation is that Professor Kreis is referring to the political war that Disney has been drawn into, even though he uses the word "litigation". With the country so deeply divided, political battles might be won and lost, but there's no end in sight for the political war that Disney has gotten itself into.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Quoting that part of the article:

Chapek will need all the support he can get. With the midterm elections looming in November, issues including race, abortion, guns and LGBTQ rights will dominate the debate on the left and right. This means the image of “woke” Disney is likely to remain in the political spotlight, says Anthony Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University.​
​
“The issues around Disney are going to get litigated ad nauseam” during the campaign, says Kreis, who writes about civil rights and politics. “There’s no winning strategy here for them.”​

My interpretation is that Professor Kreis is referring to the political war that Disney has been drawn into, even though he uses the word "litigation". With the country so deeply divided, political battles might be won and lost, but there's no end in sight for the political war that Disney has gotten itself into.
Click to expand...
I think it is what it is for the most part and won’t have much of an impact on business. Companies like Chic-FIL-A have taken controversial political positions and it hasn’t damaged their ability to be wildly successful as a business. The majority of people if asked directly will have an opinion on a political issue, but only a small minority are passionate enough about it to allow that opinion to impact their everyday life. Will Disney lose customers over this? Maybe some. Will that loss of business be significant enough to impact the bottom line and/or stock price? Probably not. Would taking no action or even less of a firm position have resulted in a loss of business from another group? Same 2 answers as above. This is a political battle Disney is in, but I’m not so sure they had any way to fully avoid it. As a political strategy this stuff is pretty successful, especially to pump up the base and most importantly gain donations.

Back more on topic, RCID has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. Just collateral damage. There’s nothing inherently controversial or evil about the special district. If anything it’s a large part of arguably one of the biggest success stories for a state economy in the last hundred years. Think about where FL would be if WDW was never built. That’s the sad part of this whole thing. Fortunately for most of us as fans of the park it ain’t goin nowhere. Disney doesn’t really need RCID like it did 50+ years ago and would survive fine without it.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
I can’t see the actual story but I know we talked about the big sell off on RCID bonds that resulted in the price dropping well below par. Are they saying the bond prices are going back up? Could be a sign that the financial community views that there will be a positive outcome for the district.
Click to expand...
The RCID bonds must be paid in any event, right? Now that RCID has been dissolved, they will be paid by Orange and Osceola County taxpayers, you know, the folks who don't actually go to WDW.
Disney Wins again.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Disstevefan1 said:
Sorry, I was not clear, after the official date and RCID is officially dissolved, the bond debt will be paid by Orange and Osceola County taxpayers, you know, the folks who don't actually go to WDW.
Disney Wins again.
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If. There a some good arguments to be made that the dissolution law doesn’t actually apply to the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
 

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