Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Monday that the state legislature is preparing a bill to revoke development agreements that a Disney-controlled special district board provided to the company before a state-controlled board took the reins in March.
During a press conference, DeSantis said the previous board’s agreements, which essentially handed over control of development within the district to Disney, weren’t legal, and were in “direct defiance of the will of the people of Florida.” Disney, he said, essentially was negotiating with itself to prevent the state from taking control of development in the district.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “That’s not going to fly.”
Florida law allows the legislature to revoke development agreements, he said, and lawmakers are preparing a bill to do just that. The bill will likely be filed next week, DeSantis said.
Disney, he said, is “going to live under the same laws as everybody else, pay their fair share of taxes, and honor the debts that they’ve accumulated over these years.”
The governor also made a series of not-so-subtly-veiled threats about what his new board could do with control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District: raise taxes on Disney to pay off debts faster, prohibit policies mandating mask-wearing, create more workforce housing, require anti-child-trafficking warnings inside Disney’s resorts, sell off the district’s utilities.
He noted that some of the land in the district isn’t owned by Disney. That land could be used for a variety of purposes; maybe a new state park, or “more amusement parks,” DeSantis said. “Someone even said, maybe you need another state prison. Who knows, I just think the possibilities are endless.”
National Review has reached out to Disney for a response to DeSantis’s announcement.
DeSantis held the press conference in Lake Buena Vista, Disney’s mailing address.
The DeSantis administration first went to battle with Disney last year after the company publicly denounced the state’s new Parental Rights in Education bill. The bill prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools to students in kindergarten through third grade. Opponents labeled it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
After receiving pressure from Disney employees, then-CEO Bob Chapek said that the company’s leaders were opposed to the bill “from the outset,” and Disney declared that the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.” The company suspended political donations in Florida as an act of protest.
Last April, DeSantis retaliated by signing a bill that stripped Disney of its 56-year-old “independent special district” status, which had granted it the privilege of creating its own regulations, building codes, and other municipal services.
Lawmakers later decided against dissolving the district, but voted instead to give the governor the power to appoint the district’s board members.
However, before the DeSantis-appointed board took over in March, the Disney-controlled board handed control of the district’s development over to Disney.
The new board members cried foul. “This board loses, for practical purposes, the majority of its ability to do anything beyond maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure,” new board member Brian Aungst said during a meeting in March.
The DeSantis administration has argued that the move was likely illegal, and they have vowed to challenge it in court. They have argued that the previous board intentionally limited required public notices in order to avoid scrutiny. Disney said that is not the case.
“All agreements signed between Disney and the District were appropriate, and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida’s Government in the Sunshine law,” Disney said in a statement at the time.
DeSantis acknowledge that Disney is “big and powerful,” but he said “they are not superior to the laws that are enacted by the people of the state of Florida.” The decisions around Disney’s special improvement district were debated during last year’s elections.
Decisions about the district were made “as a state, as a people, through the medium of our elections,” he said, but Disney didn’t care. While lawmakers were considering the best options for addressing the district, “Disney did basically special deals to circumvent that whole process,” he said. Disney “negotiated with themselves to give themselves the ability to maintain their self-governing status,” DeSantis said.
“They thought they could create some type of development agreements that would essentially render everything that we did null and void, and put them in control for perpetuity,” he said.
The state-controlled board is expected to meet Wednesday to discuss its next steps. Another possible consideration for the board – changing how Disney is taxed.
“Basically, you had a situation where the company could appraise its own property,” DeSantis said. “Imagine if you could appraise your own property. Would you appraise it too high or too low? Of course, you’re going to do it too low in terms of the taxes.”
The new board, he said, is “going to be able to get that done and get a more honest assessment about that.”
Florida lawmakers who spoke at the press conference accused Disney leaders of attempting to thwart legislative efforts in order to maintain an advantage over their competitors and other businesses.
“I hate corporate welfare, absolutely hate corporate welfare,” state Senator Blaise Ingoglia said. “They were their own government. And I would argue that is an egregious form of corporate welfare.”
His word of advice for Disney leaders regarding the fight: “Just let it go,” he said, referencing the song from Disney’s “Frozen.”
“You are not going to win this fight,” he said.
State Representative Carolina Amesty from Central Florida accused Disney of turning into the public-relations arm of extremist ideologues who are attempting to indoctrinate children. Disney leaders need to take a sober look at what they’re doing and retake the company, she said.
“I have news for the woke administration at Disney: This is not California. This is the free state of Florida,” she said. “And in Florida you don’t get to indoctrinate our kids or write your own rules.”