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

[Disstevefan1]

Is that photoshopped??

Today's photoshopped could be tomorrow's reality

 

[lazyboy97o]

The Stop W.O.K.E. Act (currently blocked by a judge for violating the 1st Amendment) targets employers from certain diversity training. One state house Republican specifically mentioned this act as targeting Disney's diversity program. I don't know if Desantis made the same connection of the act to Disney, but, he signed it. It's the same act which also limits university speech regarding racial and discriminatory issues... which has also been blocked for 1st Amendment violation.

The Stop WOKE Act has not yet been blocked. It is currently enjoined from being enforced while the matter is litigated. Despite the injunction the state is still collecting information on these issues and has been allowed to continue by the court since the state is allowed to collect information on what is occurring at its universities.

 

[GoofGoof]

Does the board of Reedy Creek choose what contractors are hired? Does DeSantis get to pick which company paves the roads under this new plan? Will they charge parking at Disney Springs?

The board absolutely decides what contractors get hired and you can bet they will not be selecting any who advocate for inclusion or require any sort of diversity training. If you don’t think that’s part of this plan then look at what’s being done at the state colleges. The other issue is when a board is appointed as a political favor they get paid a minimal salary (it’s not a full time job). Where they “get paid” is from nepotism. Hire a relative or affiliated contractor and quietly take a kick back. In regular municipalities you get voted out for doing this but when the taxpayers have no say in who decides there are no checks and balances. Someone earlier in the thread incorrectly quoted Lincoln as saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” (I believe it was some British dude who actually said it) But it certainly applies here.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The board absolutely decides what contractors get hired and you can bet they will not be selecting any who advocate for inclusion or require any sort of diversity training. If you don’t think that’s part of this plan then look at what’s being done at the state colleges. The other issue is when a board is appointed as a political favor they get paid a minimal salary (it’s not a full time job). Where they “get paid” is from nepotism. Hire a relative or affiliated contractor and quietly take a kick back. In regular municipalities you get voted out for doing this but when the taxpayers have no say in who decides there are no checks and balances. Someone earlier in the thread incorrectly quoted Lincoln as saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” (I believe it was some British dude who actually said it) But it certainly applies here.

Board members of the CFTOS would not be paid a salary, just a per diem and expenses. Easy enough to take advantage of, especially if they're not from Central Florida, but there is no actual salary.

 

[mmascari]

DeSantis wants companies to be financially successful in Florida. A financially successful WDW means more taxes and jobs for the state of Florida. Republicans are still pro-business the Old Fashioned Way. (Money.)

That's old fashioned Republican stereotype, it's no longer true. If this was the only topic, nothing else going on at all, just an completely isolated decision "is X good or bad for business", sure the Republican position is still likely to side with business over any other interest. But, that is not what is going on anymore, as these things are never isolated but part of the larger tapestry of policy.

DeSantis is fighting what he perceives is a culture war. It's not a war on business per se. Instead, it's the same culture war that's found in the "Don't Say Gay" Act, the AP African American studies class, and the New College of Florida board.

This is the number one priority. You can look at all the recent policy. Given a two topic isolated decision "culture item and business item", the current decision process is all about the culture part, and the business impact doesn't matter at all. Good or bad, doesn't matter. Isn't there a quote that the governor doesn't want Woke companies coming to FL? That's an easy example of the culture war taking priority over business. Bringing more businesses to FL would be good for the FL economy, but not if they're "woke".

This will be no different, controlling Disney will be more important than Disney being successful, which in turn also means more important than the FL economy.

It’s prioritizing the culture war over the economy.

It's 100% this.

Going forward, let’s say Disney decides they want to build a controversially themed ride.

To simple, and to direct.

Let's say Disney has a company policy like Diversity Training that the governor doesn't like. Through the appointed board managing RCID tasks, they can use those as a cudgel to influence Disney to change the Diversity Training. For that to work, the RCID impacts need to be meaningful and cause actual hardship for Disney.

That makes all of this bad for Disney business. It's extra overhead, costs, and complications, along with restrictions on how Disney runs it's business. The impact of that is higher costs for Disney, higher costs for customers, impacts to the FL workforce, and subsequent impacts to the FL economy.

The use of RCID to control the content and policy of Disney is bad for the FL economy. This is exactly what is going on.

 

[GoofGoof]

Why is DeSantis fighting Disney? It's a warning to 'woke' big business to stay out of culture wars

Conservatives are increasingly playing hardball to punish "woke"companies that take a stand on hot-button social issues such as gay rights.

news.yahoo.com

If you scroll to the bottom there’s an embedded video of a speech given by an activist standing next to DeSantis where he says “At the end of my speech, I gave a direct warning to Disney CEO Bob Chapek: he must immediately terminate the company's critical race theory training program, "Reimagine Tomorrow," which is now illegal under Florida law. No more racism in corporate America.”

As far as I know their training program hasn’t changed, but there’s no reason to believe they can’t or won’t use this board to attempt to force Disney’s hand.

 

[GoofGoof]

Board members of the CFTOS would not be paid a salary, just a per diem and expenses. Easy enough to take advantage of, especially if they're not from Central Florida, but there is no actual salary.

Yeah, so why would someone want the Governor to appoint them? I can only think of bad reasons. And I agree that if you appoint a political ally from out of state to the board they can rack up first class or private jet trips plus high end hotel rooms and huge meal tabs. There are ways to “get paid” without getting paid.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Yes. There are no trees at that intersection.

I'll bite. I do not know what you are talking about (trees). I just grabbed a photo off the web:

 

[lazyboy97o]

Why is DeSantis fighting Disney? It's a warning to 'woke' big business to stay out of culture wars

Conservatives are increasingly playing hardball to punish "woke"companies that take a stand on hot-button social issues such as gay rights.

news.yahoo.com

If you scroll to the bottom there’s an embedded video of a speech given by an activist standing next to DeSantis where he says “At the end of my speech, I gave a direct warning to Disney CEO Bob Chapek: he must immediately terminate the company's critical race theory training program, "Reimagine Tomorrow," which is now illegal under Florida law. No more racism in corporate America.”

As far as I know their training program hasn’t changed, but there’s no reason to believe they can’t or won’t use this board to attempt to force Disney’s hand.

The speaker is referring to the Stop WOKE Act which Florida is currently enjoined from enforcing. This is why no action has been taken to stop programs at Disney or any other company.

Yeah, so why would someone want the Governor to appoint them? I can only think of bad reasons. And I agree that if you appoint a political ally from out of state to the board they can rack up first class or private jet trips plus high end hotel rooms and huge meal tabs. There are ways to “get paid” without getting paid.

This is not without precedent. The board of the North Broward Hospital District serves without compensation and even have to post a $5,000 surety bond.

 

[pdude81]

In a typical scenario, yes and no. The process in a lot of places to get a building built goes through two distinct processes, zoning approval and building approval.

Building approval is where you get the actual building permits. It's the process where the construction documents are reviewed for compliance with the various building and life safety codes. This is the process that results in all notices of commencement (permits) that get posted here. In most places this process is handled entirely by the bureaucracy of the building department, elected officials are not involved. Other departments (like the fire department) will also be involved in this process but again, it's typically all within the bureaucracy. The board of supervisors could decide to get more involved in this process, but they could also do things like not hire enough plan reviewers or inspectors, increasing fees, but just generally bloating the red tape involved in the process. They would also have the power to adopt onerous codes. Hiring a building official and/or fire marshal loyal to the board could by a source of serious havoc as the building and fire codes actually vest these officials with significant, unilateral power.

Zoning approval (also sometimes called something like Design Review) is process where the look and purpose of a building is approved. This comes before the building permits. The process and requirements are much more varied by locality. This is the phase where you typically learn about new projects, where zoning commissions or even city councils decide to let a project move forward or not. It's the phase where people can say they don't want a Walmart in the neighborhood. In the US, Disney [generally] does not go through this process (same for other parks in Central Florida). This is the process that killed the Eastern Gateway over at the Disneyland Resort. In other place every new attraction at a park goes through this process. Adding this process and requiring board approval is where projects could really be stalled because the standards of review can be less technical and not based on a common model like the building codes.

Reedy Creek Improvement District is also involved in the approval of water management permits that eventually go on to the South Florida Water Management District. It's also part of the more technical, bureaucratic process but could be meddled with through lack of support and red tape.

Planning/zoning board member here and yes, they could potentially make large changes to zoning and the master plan which would at a minimum result in a lot of litigation regarding what the landowner is looking to do. That makes everything else gets harder as you would have to ask for variances at every turn. I'm simplifying this quite a bit but there is a lot of room for harm if this all comes to pass.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I'll bite. I do not know what you are talking about (trees). I just grabbed a photo off the web:
View attachment 697537

Why did you 'shop out the giant pothole?!?!

 

[mkt]

This comment did not age well!!

Your user name indicates that you're trying to bring the layoffs in...

those are at a corporate level, not hourly park CM's, They're still horribly short-staffed there.

So how did it not age well trollbot?

 

[fgmnt]

Five years from now, maybe this WILL be the Amagedon that some might think it is. But I'm confident that Nobody "really" knows how this will play out when the dust settles.

I have a funny feeling that five years from now, the "front facing" aspects of the parks and hotels will look exactly as it does today. Park guests wont see the closed door fighting that could go on behind the scenes but the rest will basically look the same.

Only time will tell though.....

How does this legislation benefit the State of Florida? How does RCID as it exists today hurt Florida?

 

[flynnibus]

What makes you say that?

Don’t feed the trolls…

 

[Notypeo]

Going forward, let’s say Disney decides they want to build a controversially themed ride. Potentially, the board could get involved on the grounds that this is inappropriate for young children.

Correct. Or, it can come up with any number of pretextual reasons to deny approval. Or make it clear (enough) that a project based on this-or-that “controversial” property wouldn’t be looked kindly upon.

 

[sedati]

Since the Governor appoints the board a future governor who is more “Disney friendly” could appoint a more “Disney friendly” board. Maybe not going back to original RCID but possibly better than this.

Yes… or possibly even worse.

 

[Patcheslee]

Yeah, so why would someone want the Governor to appoint them? I can only think of bad reasons. And I agree that if you appoint a political ally from out of state to the board they can rack up first class or private jet trips plus high end hotel rooms and huge meal tabs. There are ways to “get paid” without getting paid.

Is an AP included or would they be prohibited from having one?

 

[JohnD]

Placed on Special Order calendar in Senate. Substitute amendment filed by Senator Linda Stewart (D - Orange County) to retain RCID with two supervisors appointed by Governor and confirmed by the Senate, being the Chair and Vice Chair and three locally.

Request Rejected

Substitute amendment text: https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sect...ype=Amendments&BillNumber=0009B&Session=2023B

12:38: Amendment fails
1:05: Read a 3rd time. Now in debate
1:39: Passed 26-9

 

[GoofGoof]

The new board must be made up of Florida residents. From the bill:

(2) For appointments made pursuant to this act:​

(a) All members shall be Florida residents.​

The governor probably will appoint Florida residents with similar "cultural values."

As for why someone would want to be appointed, who on this forum would not volunteer to be an unpaid member of the board?

So just pick a snow bird with a home in FL

I agree it with the similar values comment. I wasn’t saying there are not a lot of people who would be interested and/or qualified to be on the board. I don’t think It’s likely “qualified” factors in much.

This is not without precedent. The board of the North Broward Hospital District serves without compensation and even have to post a $5,000 surety bond.

The North Broward Hospital District (d/b/a Broward Health) is governed by a seven-member Board of Commissioners, each appointed by the governor to a four-year term. The terms are staggered to expire in alternate years. Five commissioners represent specific regions within Broward County, the other two are at-large members. The Board exercises budgetary authority, selects the senior executive management, participates in the fiscal management, provides taxing authority and determines the scope of services to be provided to the community. Board members participate on various District councils and committees. The President/CEO of the North Broward Hospital District reports to the Board.

At least in that case they are volunteers from the local community ensuring that the district meets the needs of their community. RCID will not have a board from “the local community” since nobody in the district would qualify.

 

[GoofGoof]

Is an AP included or would they be prohibited from having one?

I think having an AP disqualifies you from being eligible.