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

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afterabme

Active Member
In other non-District news, the RCID website now has the agenda document for the special meetings of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista on April 6. Based on just a quick look, there isn't anything too spicy in them like there was for the RCID/CFTOD BOS sheet.

Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista have city council members resigning.
Both are approving minutes from the meeting on Feb 8.
Both are seeking to re-appoint people to the Pollution Control Board for another one-year term.
Both will consider other businesses, whatever that consist of.

The only major difference is Lake Buena Vista is requesting approval to appoint an assistant city manager.

Overall nothing spicy like Nandos Peri Peri or yesterday's stuff, but the cities are something to keep an eye on.

LBV April 6 Agenda Sheet:

BL April 6 Agenda Sheet:

Not 100% sure but I'm guessing anyone can attend these meetings. These probably won't attract the same attention as the RCID or CFTOD meetings.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
GladToBeHear said:
And Disney still has their freedom of speech and can publicly speak out about whatever state legislation they want
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I guess the only violation of the 1st amendment in your universe is if they cut out their tongues and cut off their hands so they can’t speak out again?

You have absolutely no understanding of the 1a at all. Like… zero.

Yes, please go back to reddit.
 
LittleBuford

LittleBuford

Well-Known Member
Figgy1 said:
The only auto mod around here is the inability to post naughty words

Terms and rules

You must agree to these terms and rules before using the site.
forums.wdwmagic.com forums.wdwmagic.com
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Not in my experience. When I was new here, some of my (entirely apolitical) posts were also invisible to others while awaiting moderation. After I got past a certain threshold, the system just accepted my posts automatically.

Regardless, the poster in question is not being censored in the way he imagines.
 
flyakite

flyakite

Well-Known Member
Posted in Orlando Sentinel this morning:

NOTICE OF MEETING
YOU WILL PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on April 12 th at 9:30 a.m., or as soon thereafter as practicable, the Board of Supervisors of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District will meet in regular session at The Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Resort 1850 Hotel Plaza Boulevard, Lake Buena Vista, Florida in the Horizons Ballroom. At that time, they will consider such business as may properly come before them.
3/31/2023 7398527
 
Riviera Rita

Riviera Rita

Well-Known Member
GladToBeHear said:
A lot of us don't seem to understand the first amendment. Disney's freedom of speech was not violated. The First Amendment simply blocks federal and state governments from abridging or preventing expression. It does not protect anyone from the whims of the political (or social) systems in which they reside. The consequences of their speech still adhere to the speakers. Right or wrong, we see states do this all the time. I don't want to speak for @Spokker, but I assume this is one of his points.

You can disagree with the actions the Florida governor/legislature are taking against Disney -- I'm personally still on the fence about it myself -- but let's stop using the first amendment argument.
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Disney's 'crime' was disagreeing with a bigoted piece of legislation that has no place in decent society and is actually a work of demagoguery aimed at appeasing on section of the electorate. Disney wasnt being political, they were being moral. And DeSantis is using all this to appear to be a hard man on the bigger stage of the entire US.
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
Dranth said:
As an aside to the current conversation, I have no idea how intentional all this was by Disney but the more I think about it the smarter it looks.

If you think back to the early days of this mess, one of the original ideas behind stripping RCID according to the state was that it was not ratified after the state constitution was amended back in 1968. Using that fact, the state was able to push through a law that did not specifically target Disney as the bill would cover all special districts formed before 1968. That gave them at least some cover in courts to avoid a 1A fight.

By not fighting at the time Disney allowed the state to take over RCID effectively ratifying it under the amended constitution so now if they tried to dissolve or change the district they can’t fall back on their original argument AND they would now be targeting exactly one district which strengthens any case Disney does chose to bring if it comes to that.
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Many highlight the First Amendment violation but by setting this up as a contracts dispute where Disney is the defendant, Disney is in a much stronger legal position than if they were the plaintiff in a First Amendment case.

Unlike corporate First Amendment rights, contract law is well-established with few controversial rulings. In general, a corporation’s contract protections are more secure than their First Amendment protections.

By turning this into a contracts case with Disney as the defendant, Disney played this brilliantly, while DeSantis was played the fool.
 
L

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
flyakite said:
Posted in Orlando Sentinel this morning:

NOTICE OF MEETING
YOU WILL PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on April 12 th at 9:30 a.m., or as soon thereafter as practicable, the Board of Supervisors of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District will meet in regular session at The Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Resort 1850 Hotel Plaza Boulevard, Lake Buena Vista, Florida in the Horizons Ballroom. At that time, they will consider such business as may properly come before them.
3/31/2023 7398527
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For some who attend the meeting , it’s walking distance to Disney Springs for nice food options and shopping too ! The World of Disney store is huge!
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Many highlight the First Amendment violation but by setting this up as a contracts dispute where Disney is the defendant, Disney is in a much stronger legal position than if they were the plaintiff in a First Amendment case.

Unlike corporate First Amendment rights, contract law is well-established with few controversial rulings. In general, a corporation’s contract protections are more secure than their First Amendment protections.

By turning this into a contracts case with Disney as the defendant, Disney played this brilliantly, while DeSantis was played the fool.
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Does Disney have to be the defendant? The likely argument is probably that the old board, the District, did something there were not allowed to do. Could the state not then sue the District for their conduct? Then your defendant is the District who wouldn’t be putting up much of a defense and instead would be more admitting guilt.
 
G

GBAB1973

Well-Known Member
GladToBeHear said:
And Disney still has their freedom of speech and can publicly speak out about whatever state legislation they want. They're just not going to get to keep control of their special tax district (which the governor/state government considers special treatment) for it.

Again, I can't say I 100% agree with what the governor/state legislature is doing. But I don't think Disney's first amendment is being violated. Just like I don't think users banned from Twitter have had their first amendment rights violated.

I'll leave it at that.
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LOL.

So using this logic as long as one can physically still open their mouths and say something, the government can do whatever they want to you if you say something they don't like.
 
G

GBAB1973

Well-Known Member
Spokker said:
I didn't say anything about taxes but okay. Clearly Disney is enjoying a benefit from retaining control or they wouldn't be pulling these legal shenanigans to keep that control. If I wanted to engage in arguments with people who post in bad faith, I'd just go back to Reddit.

Plus for all I keep hearing about how great and highly paid Disney's lawyers are, how are they in a situation where they pay twice the taxes? Either they are dullards or this doesn't pass the smell test.
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Absolutely, there is a benefit for Disney here. They want control of what they do inside their property. But there are also benefits to the municipalities and counties that surround it. They don't have to provide services to the district. They have a sweet set up in that sense in that Disney pays their fair share of property taxes but receives little benefit from it. Some services from the counties that Disney uses like the Orange County sheriff, Disney reimbursed the county for those. The county was no longer bogged down in having to handle zoning issues, etc. (which another myth from the DeSantis crowd is the idea that Disney was playing fast and loose with zoning and building codes).

So while yes, Disney got a benefit and were looking to protect that benefit, so did the counties who basically just collected a crap ton in taxes, didn't have to provide any services and then also reap more benefits in thousands to millions of people traversing through their counties and paying sales tax, etc. It's why the system worked for 50+ years and few people squawked about it.
 
G

GBAB1973

Well-Known Member
Spokker said:
I didn't say anything about taxes but okay. Clearly Disney is enjoying a benefit from retaining control or they wouldn't be pulling these legal shenanigans to keep that control. If I wanted to engage in arguments with people who post in bad faith, I'd just go back to Reddit.

Plus for all I keep hearing about how great and highly paid Disney's lawyers are, how are they in a situation where they pay twice the taxes? Either they are dullards or this doesn't pass the smell test.
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This was the agreement set up when the district was created. The RCID was granted power to tax Disney for infrastructure but one of the concession of being give complete control over the district was Disney still had to pay property taxes to the counties.

Wait, are you denying that Disney actually paid property taxes?
 
J

JGamer

Member
On numerous occasions the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the same rights as people. So, to say the government can try to silence a corporation using punitive measures is the equivolent of silencing an individual. If taken to higher courts, a ruling that says corporations do not have individual rights would threaten the legal protections that huge corporations have fought for. This also means Citizen's United is in at play and could be overturned. All that corporate lobbying money could go away. Do you really think Democrats or Republicans want to put that at risk?

There will be many tweets about how "investigations are ongoing" but nothing will come of them. Disney got what they wanted by keeping quiet and using contract law to win their case.
 
J

JMcMahonEsq

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
Does Disney have to be the defendant? The likely argument is probably that the old board, the District, did something there were not allowed to do. Could the state not then sue the District for their conduct? Then your defendant is the District who wouldn’t be putting up much of a defense and instead would be more admitting guilt.
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If anything if the new district tries to push this, Disney may end up more as a plaintiff than as a defendant.

Leaving aside the fact that I haven't seen anything that would indicate that 1) the contracts themselves are unenforceable, or 2) that the district exceeded their authority to enter into them, what is the most likely challenge path forward.

The new board, after being totally depants says "This isn't fair" [insert whiny spoiled 7yr old voice here] and comes out with a statement that they believe that old board's actions here were beyond their authority, and as such they are not going to honor the agreements. In that case you get Disney as a plaintiff, seeking to enforce their contract rights against the board.

Or I supposed the new board could bring some type of DJ action to get a court to claim the contracts are void as a result of the old board exceeding their authority. In at instance Disney is going to be a named party as the action involved a contractual right they currently have possess.
 
G

GBAB1973

Well-Known Member
JGamer said:
On numerous occasions the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the same rights as people. So, to say the government can try to silence a corporation using punitive measures is the equivolent of silencing an individual. If taken to higher courts, a ruling that says corporations do not have individual rights would threaten the legal protections that huge corporations have fought for. This also means Citizen's United is in at play and could be overturned. All that corporate lobbying money could go away. Do you really think Democrats or Republicans want to put that at risk?

There will be many tweets about how "investigations are ongoing" but nothing will come of them. Disney got what they wanted by keeping quiet and using contract law to win their case.
Click to expand...

There is also the time factor here. DeSantis won't be governor for much longer. I recall one of the Orlando Sentinel reporters claiming at the time there wasn't much interest in taking on Disney at the legislature level until DeSantis started whipping up votes.

This thing could be in the court system for years and by that time, DeSantis will be doing something else and the legislature may just be tired of this.
 
Tha Realest

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
JMcMahonEsq said:
If anything if the new district tries to push this, Disney may end up more as a plaintiff than as a defendant.

Leaving aside the fact that I haven't seen anything that would indicate that 1) the contracts themselves are unenforceable, or 2) that the district exceeded their authority to enter into them, what is the most likely challenge path forward.

The new board, after being totally depants says "This isn't fair" [insert whiny spoiled 7yr old voice here] and comes out with a statement that they believe that old board's actions here were beyond their authority, and as such they are not going to honor the agreements. In that case you get Disney as a plaintiff, seeking to enforce their contract rights against the board.

Or I supposed the new board could bring some type of DJ action to get a court to claim the contracts are void as a result of the old board exceeding their authority. In at instance Disney is going to be a named party as the action involved a contractual right they currently have possess.
Click to expand...
Possibly process violations - that RCID did not provide sufficient notice or whatnot.
 
G

GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
JGamer said:
On numerous occasions the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the same rights as people. So, to say the government can try to silence a corporation using punitive measures is the equivolent of silencing an individual. If taken to higher courts, a ruling that says corporations do not have individual rights would threaten the legal protections that huge corporations have fought for. This also means Citizen's United is in at play and could be overturned. All that corporate lobbying money could go away. Do you really think Democrats or Republicans want to put that at risk?

There will be many tweets about how "investigations are ongoing" but nothing will come of them. Disney got what they wanted by keeping quiet and using contract law to win their case.
Click to expand...
No one has won anything yet. This whole situation ebbs and flows like the tides. I believe the phrase "Hold My Beer" is appropriate at the current moment.
 

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