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

[Chi84]

The biggest benefit is Disney getting out of running a quasi-government that they shouldn't have ever been granted in the first place.

Your answer is that it's a detriment to Disney. My question is who benefits from the change and how?

 

[LittleBuford]

This thread went off the rails long ago, with too many people now venerating the district, solely for political reasons.

One doesn't have to venerate the district to deplore the political targeting of it. I knew next to nothing about the RCID before this whole fiasco started. Neither did DeSantis, as he himself has freely admitted in his statements on the matter, in which he's also made clear that his reasons for moving against Disney were solely ideological and nothing to do with any flaws (real or perceived) with the district.

 

[flynnibus]

Maybe you should?

The more and more this goes around, the more I'm glad that Reedy Creek is no more.

yet another deflection and pivot... you're as predictable as the tides. You can't handle the heat... just get out of the kitchen. Because you certainly can't cook.

 

[el_super]

Honest question: did you actually feel RCID was flawed enough to be a problem for the state that needed to be addressee before this dispute with the Governor?

Solved? That's a good question. I've known about Reedy Creek for awhile, and most of the news and information I have read and seen about it, has really not been all that positive. They usually come up in the news when there is some lawsuit or labor dispute. I've posted before my general opposition to government handouts to corporations and the existence of the district has always felt beyond what a corporation should be allowed to do. I do think Disney should have worked with the counties and state government to wind down the district and remove themselves from the politics of it, but do I think there was a pressing need to dissolve it? Probably not.

You don’t really have to answer but my point is you are claiming people here are venerating the district solely for political reason which seems unlikely to be true.

Aside from what they know and how they know it, I don't think a lot of people are supporting Reedy Creek NOW because they are fans of corporate controlled quasi-governments. Maybe because of nostalgia or some false assumption that WDW wouldn't exist without Reedy Creek? Turning defense of Reedy Creek into a proxy battle against the politics of Florida though is a major stretch.

To quote the old adage, two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[el_super]

yet another deflection and pivot... you're as predictable as the tides. You can't handle the heat... just get out of the kitchen. Because you certainly can't cook.

Don't need to cook when I can eat for YEARS off these personal attacks. Only thing you got left huh?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Even if EPCOT was conceived of as a Broadacre City with each household owning one acre that’s still only about 15 square miles assuming a two person average household. So even if EPCOT was built pretty much as the opposite of how it was envisioned as a pedestrian and transit oriented Garden City, Disney still would have been the majority landowner in the District.

So anyone pushing “But EPCOT” is just full of it. The legislation wasn’t focused on it. The court wasn’t focused on it. And the math just doesn’t work even if you contort EPCOT into something completely different.

 

[LittleBuford]

Turning defense of Reedy Creek into a proxy battle against the politics of Florida though is a major stretch.

To quote the old adage, two wrongs don't make a right.

You have it backwards: it was the politicians of Florida who turned control of Reedy Creek into a proxy battle for their ideological agenda.

Even if one feels that RCID shouldn't exist in its current form, that's no excuse for political targeting of the district. Legal and constitutional norms and safeguards should matter more than one's personal gripes.

 

[peter11435]

Maybe you should?

The more and more this goes around, the more I'm glad that Reedy Creek is no more.

Only because you continue to misunderstand it and repeatedly make false statements.

 

[Riviera Rita]

The biggest benefit is Disney getting out of running a quasi-government that they shouldn't have ever been granted in the first place.

And when was RCID ever a genuine problem until DeSantis decided it was?

 

[el_super]

Even if one feels that RCID shouldn't exist in its current form, that's no excuse for political targeting of the district. Legal and constitutional norms and safeguards should matter more than one's personal gripes.

You can be against both. But this is mostly a moot point now that Disney gave up control of the district.

 

[Riviera Rita]

You can be against both. But this is mostly a moot point now that Disney gave up control of the district.

Have they?

 

[lazyboy97o]

You can be against both. But this is mostly a moot point now that Disney gave up control of the district.

Are you not paying attention to recent news?

 

[LittleBuford]

You can be against both.

But you’re going further than that by equating them as “two wrongs”, ignoring the fact that political retaliation has far graver implications than whatever it is you may have disliked about Reedy Creek.

 

[peter11435]

The biggest benefit is Disney getting out of running a quasi-government that they shouldn't have ever been granted in the first place.

It’s funny that you have such an issue with a company controlling a special district and are convinced that the state never intended for their to only ever be Disney voting and yet you seem to ignore the set up of other special districts. Including the potential new universal special district that could see them as the only landowner within.

 

[GoofGoof]

Aside from what they know and how they know it, I don't think a lot of people are supporting Reedy Creek NOW because they are fans of corporate controlled quasi-governments. Maybe because of nostalgia or some false assumption that WDW wouldn't exist without Reedy Creek? Turning defense of Reedy Creek into a proxy battle against the politics of Florida though is a major stretch.

To quote the old adage, two wrongs don't make a right.

Outside of a political talking point I’m not sure what is actually meant by a corporate controlled quasi-government. RCID has no real residents to be harmed by Disney controlling the government. Sure I’d be opposed to Universal controlling the Orlando or Orange County governments or Disney controlling the Anaheim Government for obvious reasons but I still fail to see who is harmed by Disney controlling RCID. With that control comes a tax bill. Disney pays fully for a lot of services that otherwise would have to be provided by the local counties. In that regard the existence of RCID was a great benefit to local residents who would otherwise have a larger tax bill. One benefit Disney got was using municipal bonds to finance projects, but again who is harmed by that? They could only use those bonds to pay for municipal stuff. So when they build Tron coaster or a new hotel they couldn’t finance those things that way. It was for roads and utility services. WDW is the size of a city with a unique set of needs that most other businesses don’t have. The curse of having all that land.

So getting back to the original question: who was being harmed by Disney having control of a “quasi-government” and what was the actual harm?

 

[Schmidt]

Love to see Disney standing up for itself with Iger's statement today!
DeSantis shouldn't want this war. I don't see any winners coming out of this battle, and can potentially see this hindering DeSantis's political ambition.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

So again why did they have to setup the quasi-government in the first place? Why have a democratically elected board? Why setup the complicated land ownership and houses with Disney employees in it? Why not just sign the whole thing over to Disney at the get-go?

Because if there was no special district with a form of government then everything that RCID handled and paid for would have been the burden of the counties in which WDW is located. RCID was the solution to a problem, not a problem itself.

 

[GoofGoof]

Because if there was no special district with a form of government then everything that RCID handled and paid for would have been the burden of the counties in which WDW is located. RCID was the solution to a problem, not a problem itself.

^this exactly

RCID was a win/win. Disney was happy and invested billions in the state. Local citizens were happy because they didn’t need to foot the bill for services for millions of tourists coming through the gates. The state benefited too from the economic benefit Plus the extra tax dollars coming in. In 2021 Disney paid $780M in state and local taxes and is the largest taxpayer in Central FL

 

[peter11435]

Because if there was no special district with a form of government then everything that RCID handled and paid for would have been the burden of the counties in which WDW is located. RCID was the solution to a problem, not a problem itself.

Exactly this. The district meant that no taxes paid by residents around WDW were used to develop infrastructure and fund services for WDW. But WDW still paid taxes to develop infrastructure and fund services for those residents outside of its boundaries.

 

[Chi84]

I don’t know if anyone cited it, but this article has a very thorough explanation of Reedy Creek and how it came about. https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=lr