tissandtully
Well-Known Member
Completely astounded the pro-business party is anti-business in this instance. Being able to govern yourself is like the basic principle of conservatism. And they are out here saying it's bad, lmao. Unserious people.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District
- Thread starter castlecake2.0
- Start date
Just keeping my eyes peeled on the Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake meetings tomorrow. The agendas show both cities are proceeding on matters as they normally would. It will be interesting to see if they talk about the new Board of the District, doubt it will happen, but still something to be on the lookout for.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
Are these meetings open to the public?
Minthorne
Well-Known Member
There is PROOF that Disney doesn't want residents in the district!
www.orlandoweekly.com
Mickey Evicted! Disney's "Toontown Fair" Closed and Awaiting Demolition
February 11th, 2011, will go down in history as the day the housing market collapse hit the Magic Kingdom. After over a year of negotiating...
flynnibus
Premium Member
But we already know this concern was raised and addressed well before that pivot point. The desire for control, including excluding residents from that power, was a named tenant in the genesis of the company concluding they needed RCID. It was discussed all the way back in 1965 during the Project Future Seminar (Chp 5 Project Future), and was incorporated in the writing the RCID Act in 1966-67. All of this happened before any actual development started. Marty Sklar's book goes more into the thought process of why they pivoted to the world's fair concepts.
The voting control issue had been settled years earlier. They always intended to isolate resident's say from control of the property. The topic was never 'if' Disney would allow residents say, it was 'how do we do it'. Later Court rulings threatened their position of excluding residents, so they abandoned then in progress residential build outs in 1971 (Pg 78 Project Future).
Guessing here, they should be. If people and journalists went to the previous RCID and new CFTOD Board meetings, people should be able to attend the meetings of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake without issue. They are government bodies. Hopefully, someone here with more experience can answer this.
If someone wanted to confirm their ability to attend they could always call the RCID and ask. They close at 5 PM today.
GrumpyFan
Well-Known Member
Nobody has an answer for that, either. Granted the old situation gave Disney somewhat of an unfair competitive advantage and there were some provisions in it that were unneeded, but still it was a mutually beneficial agreement between them and the taxpayers.
I would love to hear Desantis or a state legislator try and explain how the new deal (without the RCID last minute changes) was better for the people of Florida.
Maybe you or someone in this thread should show up at one of the future meetings and ask this question.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
Yes but there's a lot of crap that can be hidden in executive session if everybody on the board agrees to keep their mouth shut. They have to have a public portion but it can be really short and frustrating to anybody who shows up. So who knows how this all goes. It depends on the agenda (in more ways than one).
GoofGoof
Premium Member
At this point someone responds with a post using the term “quasi-government”. Wait for it….wait for it….
GoofGoof
Premium Member
To be fair the 27,000 acres (less now I guess) gives Disney a huge competitive advantage and with it a lot of additional costs. RCID was only needed because of the size of the property. What benefit would a special district with that scope be for any of Disney’s competitors today? Universal is asking for a special district with some level of control, but that’s for a very specific and limited purpose, a train station. That district will have nothing like the scope of services RCID performed for Disney.
flynnibus
Premium Member
No, the State was additionally challenging the legality of the RCID Act itself. The Bond challenge was part of the inital lawsuit, and the scope of the challenges was expanded in the later appeals. In the appeal to the Supreme Court of FL they added challenges to the Act itself for being against the state constitution on four challenges.
All this ruse was setup to lock-up a judgement that would protect the district and absolve any concerns about its ability to operate and issue it's bonds. The Supreme Court case not only ensured their bond authority, but locked in that the RCID Act itself was valid under the state constitution.
Last edited:
GrumpyFan
Well-Known Member
Is it a "huge competitive advantage" though? Sure it makes some things easier and maybe quicker for them to get approval for, but as history has shown in the last 10 years, Disney is still VERY slow in comparison to their competition in developing new properties and attractions. I say it's a slight competitive advantage, but it's more advantageous to the surrounding counties, their taxpayers, and the state who are relieved of the burden of managing them and having to provide services to facilitate Disney's enormous property and the day-to-day minutia to maintain it.
I think that both sides would agree that RCID was never intended (or is intented today) to be good for Florida "directly". It's goal is to be good for...and support the company inside of it.
If RCID is good for Disney and Disney benifits from RCID....than the side effect from that is a strong, unobstructed and sucessful Disney that benifits Florida "indirectly".
So yes....a Disney-run local "puppet" government...in a way....DOES help Florida's tourism and DOES help Florida.
flynnibus
Premium Member
The Supreme Court ruling (https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/supreme-court/1968/37569-0.html) makes it obvious this distinction is not relevant to the challenges against RCID - and only possibly to the challenge against the bond authoity. On the challenges, the judgement upheld that the bonds would benefit more than just Disney in the district. The court found that the promotion of the things including tourism were in the public interest.
On the challenges against RCID, the primary purpose wasn't germane to the challenges or conclusions of the court. If anything one might argue that with 'no residents' the public benefit of the Bonds might be assessed differently, but given the argument laid out by the court, it doesn't seem likely. They were acknowledging the state's prior claims that the promotion of tourism and development benefited the state, and not just Disney.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I agree. What I was saying is the massive size of WDW is the huge competitive advantage, not the district itself. The district only exists to help manage the massive size of the property. So for competitors without a massive piece of property a district with the scope of RCID would not be much of an advantage compared to the cost.
Chi84
Premium Member
I agree in part, but with a twist. As explained in the article I cited, Florida wanted Disney because of the anticipated huge economic benefit to the state that came along with being a major tourist center. Without a special district to help Disney accomplish what it wanted, they may have chosen another site for "Disneyland East." Or the resulting development would have been nowhere near as large and complicated as WDW.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Politicians know to answer the question you want to answer.. not the question asked.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
FL law and the FL Supreme Court agree with you. A clip from the paper posted a few pages back talking about when the FL Supreme Court ruled the RCID setup was valid and legal:
Florida law has consistently held that a “public purpose” may still result even if a private entity has realized a distinct benefit. Florida law seems to be especially lenient when considering “public purpose” issues related to tourism and entertainment matters, which is not surprising considering the significant role that these industries play in the state’s overall economy. As a result, the court’s expansive definition in Reedy Creek hardly fell outside the norm of both past and future jurisprudence on the issue.
Walt scoped out, plotted and purchased that land long before he knew that RCID would ever exist.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
How is collecting tax revenue without having to use it to provide services not a direct benefit?