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News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District
- Thread starter castlecake2.0
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Teleostei35
New Member
Another article summarizing this situation.
webcache.googleusercontent.com
DeSantis’s controversial Disney board tries to move past its bumpy start
The handpicked board passes a $194.5 million budget to oversee the entertainment company’s huge property in Florida and to continue a lawsuit — against Disney.
webcache.googleusercontent.com
Teleostei35
New Member
Looking into the “affect property owners” is going to be interesting discovery.
Disney filed an Amended Counterclaim in the state case today. They’ve added all the federal constitutional claims, including free speech.
But they still reserve their rights to proceed in federal court:
BTW: the state is due to file their Motion to Dismiss in the federal court today.
But they still reserve their rights to proceed in federal court:
BTW: the state is due to file their Motion to Dismiss in the federal court today.
I think you’re right. Disney obviously didn’t choose these 5 districts at random. I suspect that many young lawyers, law students &/or paralegals spent many many hours researching various special districts and obtaining records from them and the Dept of Commerce.
And I assume the documents will include Development Agreements that are similar to Disney’s in terms of the scope of commitments made and rights vested.
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flynnibus
Premium Member
These supoenas are so broad and cover such an insane amount of time. Certainly some of these people are going to object to these... Provide all documents related to developer agreements over 20yrs? "All Documents, including financial statements and analyses, concerning the financial impact of past and anticipated future development activities by Disney on You" "All Documents and Communications regarding the Comprehensive Plan"
"All Documents that identify “affected property owners,” as that phrase is used in §163.3225, Fla. Stat., in Your District over the last 20 years."
". All Documents and Communications regarding Your interpretation of the phrase“affected property owners,” as that phrase is used in § 163.3225, Fla. Stat"
If I were one of these random districts.. I'd be like "do your own research not do some 20yr wide net hoping to find something relevant". I mean this basically screams fishing for some sort of evidence since it really has no cited examples, timeframe, or even reference that they have made developer agreements.
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pdude81
Well-Known Member
I wonder if that is part of the point... if Disney is challenging what CFTOD and the state say was improper notice. They may already know of some cases where somebody (a special district) forgot to cross a "t" and the resultant challenge didn't go anywhere. 100% speculation on my part
flynnibus
Premium Member
The point is to flush out other examples I'm sure but they really can't burden random people to dumb every record free willy so they can hunt for possible stuff.
Then they should be asking for the documents around a specific agreement or citing the court judgement about a matter. "they did it too and no one cared" really isn't a defense against a claim of failing to meet the standards of the law.
This "give me everything related to any dev agreement you might have had in the last 20yrs" is so broad it really stands to be thrown out. And I doubt Disney's plan is to make it look like everyone can get their requests tossed.
I don’t claim to know the law on these issues, but my understanding is that in a civil suit of this nature large document productions aren’t unusual. Most of the documents are probably digital, can be searched by keywords and, since these are government entities, they’re presumably organized in ways that allow them to respond to public records requests. (It seems like much of what Disney is seeking is likely subject to public records requests anyway?)
The subpoenas allow recipients to make production conditional on Disney paying their reasonable costs.
They can also talk to Disney’s lawyers if they have a concern about the breadth of the subpoenas, and perhaps come to an agreement about what should be produced.
If they can’t agree, I assume FL law also allows them to challenge the subpoena in court. I think we can all assume that the Governor’s Office and Desantis will do exactly that, especially re. communications and executive & legislative privilege.
Re. Lake Buena Vista & Bay Lake: Apart from alleged technical infirmities, the district essentially claims that the agreement was a nefarious back-room deal, and the cities were involved in approving it. Also, the district claims that the cities’ involvement in approving the agreement did not meet legal requirements. Their records were always going to end up as part of discovery. (They may also end up as parties. Disney argues that the district is required by statute to add them to the lawsuit.)
I suspect the records from the other districts are narrower than we’d think. Yes, 20 years is a long time but I think development agreements would generally only be used for really big long-term projects, because that’s when they’re needed. And those districts must have been chosen for a reason. I think Disney knows exactly what they’re looking for, and the districts receiving the subpoenas will too. The lawyers may already be talking.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Even if digital, they are unlikely in a simple retrievable format. 20 years is multi-generational in IT terms. These are small entities of generally barebones internal infrastructure - not likely entities that have invested year after year in Digital File indexing and archiving.
Just look at how hard it is for you to find some mail you sent 5 years ago... now imagine trying to keyword search over multiple iterations of technology that may not even be kept online anymore, just stored for retention... and someone coming along and saying "give me everything that includes the keywords... "abc"".
If you did that with a public records request... they'd tell you to pound sound and refine your criteria.
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
The reason for this is probably because developer agreements are agreements that last 30 years. By going back 20 years, they are essentially dealing with the documents around a single development agreement, possibly two if negotiations have started on a new one.
I'm pretty sure Florida's sunshine law allows for such requests. And given these are all public entities, they would have to comply as much as possible.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Most of the districts aren’t even 20 years old.
Daytona Beach Racing & Recreational Facilities District is the oldest (1955) but would likely have agreements with NASCAR.
Seminole Improvement District was founded in 1970 but I haven’t dug in enough to see who they would have agreements with. Westlake is a new municipality but does seem like it make have some large developments involved in its creation.
Babcock Ranch and Lakewood Ranch are both large, multi-county residential developments whose respective districts were established in the 2000s, they likely have developed agreements with the developers because that’s like the default use case for such agreements.
Water Street Tampa is not even a decade old and is tied to Strategic Property Partners.
The development agreements are also intended as long term with a maximum of thirty years. Given the time frame of the search, age of most of the districts and their general close association to a single corporate entity, there are probably not more than a few answers if not just a single answer for each district that they already know. I don’t think this is a fishing expedition. I’m guessing they know already know the agreements exist but have broad language to avoid the accusation of just digging up some single case.
flynnibus
Premium Member
I think it's because the Florida code for document retention is 20yrs for abandoned/denied Developer Agreements. https://files.floridados.gov/media/703328/gs1-sl-2020.pdf (page 33 pdf)
These aren't being made under those laws though - they are being made under the authority of supoenas - which has constraints. I don't know why they just didn't do their own public records searching - but maybe because this way they get stricter timelines and better chain of authority.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Looking further into the sunshine manual - https://www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023GovernmentInTheSunshineManual.pdf - they'd have to accomodate you... but would probably scare you with cost estimates and try to encourage you with ways to improve your request with the knowledge they have
And when it comes to those kinds of agreements, the districts will know exactly what they have and where it is. They enter into the agreements to (ideally) make everyone’s rights and obligations clear. If there’s a disagreement down the road, you need that documentation.
I don’t want these people anywhere near my town
yensid1967
Well-Known Member
How can CFTOC have a say with anything Disney offers their employees? They are to govern the land? Right?