A new report from the State of Florida’s Central Florida Tourism Oversight District declares that The Walt Disney Company created an “‘experimental absolute monarchy’ within the borders of the State of Florida.”
Cinderalla’s Castle in Walt Disney World via 4k WDW YouTube
In the introduction to the report, which featured professional testimony by Professor Donald Kochan, Bill Jennings, and Kimley Horn for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, it makes it abundantly clear what The Walt Disney Company did in the State of Florida declaring, “[Disney] had established an extra-constitutional governing authority—’an experimental absolute monarchy’ within the borders of the State of Florida, and, accordingly, the United States—one that strikingly resembled, without exaggeration, a kingdom of yore.”
The report is specifically discussing the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which was created back in 1967 and was recently replaced by Governor Ron DeSantis with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District was originally created as “a special taxing district … that would act with the same authority and responsibility as a county government.” It was primarily created so that The Walt Disney Company could develop Walt Disney World and bring in power and water to the area to the then remote rural area.
Specifically, the Reedy Creek Improvement District noted that landowners within the area, which was “primarily Walt Disney World would be solely responsible for paying the cost of providing typical municipal services like power, water, roads, fire protection etc.”
Walt Disney World sign via Orlando Streets YouTube
The new report, which was exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, detailed, “What is now evident is that Disney not just controlled the Reedy Creek Improvement , but did so by effectively purchasing loyalty. The vast majority of employees at the RCID were working hard to do their jobs and were diligent in doing so. Nonetheless, because of the decisions made by RCID management and the Board of Supervisors, their work was tainted with the appearance of impropriety. As comprehensively documented within, for years, the company treated district employees like Disney employees by, for instance, providing complimentary annual passes and steep discounts—benefits and perks that were akin to bribes. Not surprisingly then, the District’s employees believed that it was their job to prioritize the interests of Disney.”
It goes on to note that The Walt Disney Company never fulfilled its promises for the Reedy Creek Improvement District, “Disney sold the RCID as one thing in the mid 1960s, but there was deception behind the pitch and sale. The company promised, for example, affordable housing, transportation, and other social and community services. Today, 100,000 people commute into the District to work for Disney. Yet under Disney’s control, the RCID built no workforce housing or schools and did not develop any public services directed at anyone but Disney tourists.”
The district also gave special treatment to Disney, “The RCID never made Disney pay impact fees, as all other developers in Orange and Osceola Counties must pay. Transportation impact fees linked to hotel rooms alone would cost Disney $130 million in Orange County today.”
Mickey walks down Main Street USA at Disneyland. (Credit: Mortimer Productions)
The report succinctly states, “The RCID was a mousetrap. Disney dangled savory cheese in front of the Florida Legislature and the people of Orlando, but quickly abandoned its city-building pretense.”
It adds, “Without real checks and balances, internal dissent and public decision-making was shut down and competition was likely stifled, if not eliminated. What’s more, the citizens of Osceola and Orange Counties paid for the operation of the district without receiving their entitled rights to participation and benefit.”
Furthermore, the report notes “that complete and unaccountable governmental power was handed over to a private corporation, transforming a democratic institution into a private corporate monopoly.”
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Finally, the report concludes that the Florida legislature’s actions in reforming the district were warranted.
“As the foregoing analysis demonstrates, the governance of the District was in dire need of reform, and thus the legislature was amply warranted in passing 2022 Florida Senate Bill 4C and
2023 Florida House Bill 9B,” the report declares. “As a result of that legislation, the new District Administrator and the Board have undertaken a myriad of reforms, and the current governance structure is working well.”
Kaitlin P. and Sorcerer Mickey via Disney Parks YouTube
The Walt Disney Company sued the State of Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis back in April. In the 77-page claim, Disney alleged the dissolution of the Reedy Creek Improvement District violates the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution, violates the Takings Caluse of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and violates the company’s First Amendment political speech.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has spoken on numerous occasions in the press claiming the State of Florida retaliated against the Reedy Creek Improvement District over the company getting itself involved in the Parental Rights in Education bill, which banned the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through third grade.
Most recently, Iger made this assertion during The New York Times’ DealBook Summit 2023.
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Iger said, “The Governor decided — he got very, very angry at the company when it took that position — and decided to punish the company by basically stripping it of… First, he wanted to strip essentially the entity that manages the property that Disney World is on. Then he decided that was impractical so he would just take out the board and put his own board in.”
“We felt that was a direct result of the company having exercised its right to free speech taking the position against the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. And that punishing us for exercising our right to free speech was anti-American and anti-business. And I felt that it was really important for us to stand up for our rights and simply ask the question,” he pivoted.
Despite claiming everything had to with the falsely named ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, Iger then claimed it had nothing to do with it, “It wasn’t about the Don’t Say Gay’ bill at that point. It was about does the company have a right to free speech and if it exercises that right to free speech it should not face a retribution because it has done. And that’s what we thought was going on. So there’s a lawsuit that we filed that is very specific to that.”
Bradley Cooper and Bob Iger attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood CA on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
(Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
However, this claim was disputed by legal analyst Andrew Esquire, who refuted in when he previously made it during an earnings call, “Disney was never punished for that. RCID is not Disney. Once again, this is what he keeps doing. Bob Iger and he’s done it once on a previous call and now he’s doing it again. He’s saying, ‘They punished us.’ What did they do to you, Disney? They actually did nothing to Disney directly. Nothing.”
“Okay, they changed the district, but the district isn’t Disney. You’ve had to certify that,” Esquire said. “So either you’re confessing to securities fraud and saying that the entire time you were Disney so there’s tax fraud, securities fraud, a bunch of Florida crimes that have been broken. But this is what you are saying here. If you’re saying you’re RCID, well, yeah, there’s going to be issues there. But this is not the worst and this is not where he digs himself in deeper.”
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Esquire also previously informed YouTuber WDW Pro, the owner of That Park Place, that The Walt Disney Company would suffer defeat to the State of Florida in both their lawsuit against them and the lawsuit that the newly created Central Florida Tourism Oversight district board filed.
As reported by Reuters, the board filed their suit claiming, “In an effort to stymie Florida’s elected representatives, Disney covertly cobbled together a series of eleventh-hour deals with its soon-to-be-replaced puppet government.”
It adds, “Disney hoped to tie the hands of the new, independent Board and to preserve … its own government in the District for at least the next 30 years.”
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 27: (L-R) The Walt Disney Company Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger and Bradley Cooper attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 World Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on April 27, 2023. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
Esquire informed WDW Pro, “It appears that in both of these cases that we may have giant wins for the state of Florida, for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, and for Ron DeSantis.”
He explained, “For Disney, the nightmare scenario, the worst possible scenario, which is a likely scenario, I don’t want to give exact probabilities, but it’s something that could very much probabilistically happen is the federal case gets entirely dismissed. It gets entirely thrown out. There’s multiple reasons. The reason cited, one of the main reasons which I have said from the beginning on this which is Disney does not truly have standing. They do not meet the elements for standing. Standing means the ability to bring a claim to court.”
“This is exactly the reason that the citizens who actually sued the state of Florida for these legislative changes way back earlier this year, they were thrown out for standing,” Esquire elaborated. “Disney also can be thrown out for much similar grounds.”
“So they’re very likely to be tossed out if not entirely almost all of the counts,” he relayed. “So perhaps four of the counts might get tossed. You might have one remaining count there in federal court.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 28: (L-R) The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger, Showrunner/Executive Producer Jon Favreau, Pedro Pascal and Alan Bergman, Chairman of Disney Studios Content attends the Mandalorian special launch event at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on February 28, 2023. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
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Regarding the State of Florida’s suit against Disney, Esquire detailed, “But the worst thing, even further, is the state case. So Disney wants to dismiss that. If that’s allowed to proceed we’re going to start getting discovery and this is going to be a nightmare. We are talking about internal Disney files, sources, emails, text messages that show their knowledge, their duplicitousness, the fact that they were trying to pass things in the last minute in the 11th hour, and trying to make it a look a certain way for the media.
“That would be a nightmare if that information comes out because you better believe it is going to be publicized and talked about by the DeSantis team and by Florida. It is not going to look good for Disney,” Equire asserted.
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This new report appears to bolster Esquire’s predictions and does not bode well for The Walt Disney Company and embattled CEO Bob Iger.
What do you make of this new report?
