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

[lazyboy97o]

Honestly, I am not very hopeful given the mail notice situation. The only thing I’m hanging onto is that both RCID and Disney read the requirement because that same statute spells out what must be included in both the newspaper notice and mailed notice. RCID followed the requirements to a tee.

And taking with a grain of salt, the New York Post wrote: “senior DeSantis administration officials say the company intentionally limited legally required public notices of the new agreement to shield it from scrutiny and ease its passage.”

My hope is that if in fact the lack of notice was intentional then surely Disney had a reason for not doing it.

I still don’t see how that gives the district standing for a do over. They were in no way harmed. “We may have harmed some unidentified party that isn’t seeking redress for the maintenance of the status quo” is an odd argument. And it’s all so they can institute changes that none of these hypothetical injuries parties have sought.

 

[OceanBlue]

To me it's pretty simple. Disney said they would do everything they could to make sure the law didn't go into effect. Florida then responded by taking away Disneys special privileges. If Disney's not going to support the Florida govt. then why would the Florida govt. support disney?

It seems petty, and I think personally BOTH sides could have handled this better.

Support? What does that even mean? That's how business operates in the PRC, not the USA. Disney spoke out against a proposed law that many of its employees, who are constituents, feel threatened by. It's advocacy and free speech, and if a State or Federal government looks to hostility take over, and also injure that business (saying he could put a state prison on RCID land, add tolls and special taxes etc) that's pure authoritarianism. I also don't it as special privileges, it was the status quo for over 50 years and the model that created the central Florida tourist economy to begin with.

 

[GoofGoof]

I still don’t see how that gives the district standing for a do over. They were in no way harmed. “We may have harmed some unidentified party that isn’t seeking redress for the maintenance of the status quo” is an odd argument. And it’s all so they can institute changes that none of these hypothetical injuries parties have sought.

Yes, as we talked about yesterday:

The entire “void the entire contract because RCID failed to notify all landowners 60 days in advance by mail” seems highly dubious.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume the former RCID board did fail to notify all of the district’s landowners.

The typical judge is going to hold up the contract, make sure all landowners are notified and, if none object within the 60 days required by statute, allow the contract to take effect.

What district landowner is going to object? They all have close business relationships with Disney. Are any of them going to want the new crazy board deciding what Disney can do instead of Disney?

Any judge worth their salt seeks the least invasive remedy.

 

[mkt]

Just think if Ron manages to exterminate the rodent the impact that will have on the job market in Florida, all that add. labor could end up putting pressure to lower wages.

Disney's going nowhere. They cannot afford to build another WDW anywhere on the planet, even if the land were given to them for free.\

Anyway, I remember reading years ago that for every job Disney created in Florida, six other jobs were created outside of Disney.

77000 + (77000 * 6) = 539,000. Is Ronny willing to destroy his state's economy to beat Disney? That's the question.

As far as lowering wages goes, there's a minimum wage constitutional amendment, so not likely.

 

[Chi84]

@Stripes, what does the statute provide as the consequence for lack of notice? I know it's somewhere here but this thread is blowing up. I would imagine it's also important who is challenging lack of notice - it's rarely fatal unless there is some real legal consequence.

 

[flynnibus]

A lawyer on twitter was saying if this is the best the state and new board has, they are in a tough spot if this goes to court. All they've really done is try to poke some holes in procedures and then try to inject a concept of "self dealing" with no real attacks on the legality of the agreement itself. And the self dealing angle he said is a tough case to make because by their very nature, special districts are set up for the benefit of the underlying entity that wanted the special district created. In other words, if Universal gets a special district, it would obviously be set up to benefit Universal.

Yeah, I think the whole self-dealing argument relies on attacking the very premise that the board was made up of disney friendly folks.. which relies on attacking the premise of having the landowners elect them. It's ugly - but it's by design and already law.

The angles of not benefiting RCID and these other contract points they bring up I don't know how sound they are to blanket void the deal. But obviously they are trying to attack on tho on both fronts.. having the district nullify it and trying to have the state nullify it.. and see which sticks.

This is why I don't really have an opinion on the strength of the position the lawyers outlined... they certainly outlined a lot of stuff they treated as I would call 'damaging' but not necessarily damning. Then other things they claim were much stronger... but rely on a lot of interpretation I think. It certainly sounds to me more like a 'decided by a judge based on the arguments' rather than a B&W paper answer.

 

[SirLink]

Comcast/NBC/Universal aren't safe here either, because they own NBC News and MSNBC, which has a liberal leaning commentary on news/political events. DeSantis could always turn his attention to doing the same to them for their news agencies reporting things critical of him and his administration.

They didn't attack the legislation though thats the key point. NBC Comcast was able to succesfully able to put a pour a bucket of water of this aggressive far left cohort of their organisation and NBC Comcast are still are making donations to the Republicans & Democrats.

 

[The Mom]

It is absolutely impossible to discuss political topics without being political. Being political is not being inflammatory.

Then perhaps you should not join in the discussion. Other posters seem to be able to do it.

 

[GoofGoof]

One more thing to add here, anyone who thinks this is over now and the Governor won because the board is declaring the contract void doesn’t understand contract law. There also may not be a formal lawsuit by Disney over any of this right now. They could just go about their business without pause. When Disney goes to do anything they are contractually allowed to do that the board then tries to stop that may be when they act to enforce their legally executed contract. It could go the other way where the board attempts to take an action not allowed in the contract like some stuff they threatened. The point is nothing has changed today. The agreement isn’t going anywhere and it could be years (or never) when the 2 sides clash over it. In the world of social media arguments everyone wants to declare a winner but this one may drag on indefinitely.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

There's more examples, but these are the most gross examples of their intent to quell free speech in Florida.

As has already been pointed out to you, public school teachers have virtually no free speech protections when on the job.

Garcetti v. Ceballos is the controlling opinion here if you care to read up on it.

 

[flynnibus]

The problem is the District has limited ability to raise funding to actually fight this in court, which they're clearly aware of.

It seemed one of their tactics was to call out the fee structures they have vs other areas... notable the 'impact fees' when talking about their goals of paying their emergency services more (which in itself seems to just be a placating ploy).

Charging impact fees to raise money to pay for the EMS expansion and increased costs the board is pushing.

Obviously those impact fees can't be used for general admin costs of the district, but I think it shows the general "wall building" mentality... we're gonna do this and we're gonna may them pay for it too!

 

[JAB]

@Stripes, what does the statute provide as the consequence for lack of notice? I know it's somewhere here but this thread is blowing up. I would imagine it's also important who is challenging lack of notice - it's rarely fatal unless there is some real legal consequence.

IIRC, Len posted something the other day that showed that failure to do the mailings does not void a development contract that was publicly noticed (which it was).

From other discussions, it sounds like the only consequence if they somehow didn't send out the necessary mailings might simply be that they would have to send them out and wait for any RCID landowners to object to the contracts (which I highly doubt any would). If no one objects, the agreements are still valid. There was also discussion about the statute only requiring the mailings go to "affected landowners," so there's an argument to be made that the only landowners affected by the agreements were Disney and RCID and therefore no one else required a mailed notice.

 

[MisterPenguin]

That is what would happen currently Disney has not had to pay taxes like other local businesses have had to do. Disney was paying their own contracted workers bare minimum to provide them with their essential functional needs like water, electric, etc and therefore had an agreement with their contracts to pay a little as they go like an interest unto themselves. If changed Disney would not have that protection anymore of paying themselves and holding off paying for their essentials they would be forced to pay the state taxes just like every other business has had to do.

I don't know what your previous handle was, but, you're spreading a lie.

Disney paid local government taxes the same as Universal and SeaWorld.

Then, they paid ***EXTRA*** to the district for their own infrastructure (roads, water, sewage, etc...).

Meanwhile, they didn't get service from the local governments. Which was a boon to everyone living in the area since Disney was paying huge amount of taxes and the local governments weren't spending the money on WDW, but on their other citizens.

You want to complain about low wages? Check out how Florida valued it's workers until the people voted an amendment to their constitution....

​

The Florida minimum wage was last changed in 2008, when it was raised $4.21 from $6.79 to $11.00. Florida's minimum wage rate is linked to a Consumer Price Index, which is intended to raise the rate along with inflation. The current minimum wage rate is re-evaluated yearly based on these values.​

​

The current minimum wage in Florida is $11.00 per hour. The tipped wage is $7.98 per hour. On November 3, 2020, Florida voters approved a state constitutional amendment to gradually increase the state's minimum wage each year until reaching $15.00 per hour on September 30, 2026.​

 

[SirLink]

Disney's going nowhere. They cannot afford to build another WDW anywhere on the planet, even if the land were given to them for free.\

Anyway, I remember reading years ago that for every job Disney created in Florida, six other jobs were created outside of Disney.

77000 + (77000 * 6) = 539,000. Is Ronny willing to destroy his state's economy to beat Disney? That's the question.

As far as lowering wages goes, there's a minimum wage constitutional amendment, so not likely.

Who cares about another WDW, Disney couldn't maintain the one they have. I'm hoping some entity will put Disney in its place.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Who cares about another WDW, Disney couldn't maintain the one they have. I'm hoping some entity will put Disney in its place.

Why haven't other theme parks done that already? Don't they want to be no. 1?

 

[Vacationeer]

Let’s be honest here: Disney tried a last minute poison pill, it didn’t work, and further increased tensions between them and the incoming board.

Whatever chance of amicability that was there before, was completely destroyed by Disney trying to subvert the new incoming board.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes…

Could it be that Disney felt they needed to protect WDW’s operational interests by limiting how much damage could result from the newly STATE appointed district? Could they even have a responsibility to do so since they are a publicly traded company?

 

[Vacationeer]

Totally agree on Citizens and that the outcome of any case is "it depends".

In this situation, I'm encouraging Dan to get the basics of the First Amendment explained by someone who isn't some rando on the internet. I'm 99.44% sure anyone who picks up that phone will do a good job of it.

Unfortunately I can’t be that optimistic seeing how many people are still confused about Terms of Service on private websites, and how that applies to interaction in those communities.

 

[flynnibus]

It was outlined in the meeting today.

You mean the folks claiming the agreement was subverting a state law -- that did not yet exist?

Funny they left that last part off their argument didn't they?

 

[Riviera Rita]

When do these guys go to the bathroom? I've peed like four times since this started.

Depends.

 

[tissandtully]

View attachment 711252

Kermit would be disappointed