Disney Makes Quiet But Critical Response in DeSantis vs. Reedy Creek District Battle

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may be having his battle with Disney and the old board of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (now the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District) out in the “sunshine” with plenty of press present, but it seems Disney has opted to fight back a bit more in the shadows.

Governor DeSantis has openly criticized Disney’s agreements with the old board, which give them a lot of authority in the District for a solid number of years. He has since outlined his plan of “attack” against Disney, which includes a bill amendment now introduced into the Florida legislature that could nullify Disney’s deals. The new board has also taken steps toward declaring Disney’s agreements with the old board invalid. Disney initially released a statement defending its actions but has thereafter remained silent. But that doesn’t mean Disney isn’t fighting back.

Though on the outside it might look like Disney is not fighting back against DeSantis and the new board of supervisors for the District, it seems quite a bit of action is happening…it’s just a little less obvious.

First, Disney has published a page on its Disney Connect website all about “The Value of Disney Reedy Creek to Florida.” 

The webpage discusses in detail how the District continues to fulfill its legislative intent, namely the “advancement of economic progress and well-being of the people of Florida by facilitating the development of a world-class tourist destination.”

It also notes how the District has helped Disney welcome millions of visitors over the years and has “historically championed efforts to protect Florida’s natural environment.”

It seems like this could be a subtle call to the current Board that they do not forget the District’s “legislative intent” and the good it has done over the years.

Some current board members have argued that things are different now than how they were when the District was first created, and that no one (except perhaps Disney) allegedly believed the District would continue for this long.

But Disney’s page seeks to remind everyone that when Disney was built, the local counties didn’t have the services or resources to ensure Disney could be built. And the legislation has since kept the responsibility of paying for power, water, roads, and fire protection within the District, saving local counties from that added expense.

Many times, DeSantis and new board members have discussed how the goal of these recent changes has been to make Disney pay its “fair share” of taxes, implicating or outright stating that Disney has attempted to avoid paying its share of taxes.

Disney seeks to dispel this idea by specifically noting on their website that they are one of the “largest taxpayers in the region.” They outright say, “We have always paid our fair share of taxes and more, including paying and collecting a combined $1.146B in state and local taxes.”

Disney goes on to note that they’ve paid all state, local, and district taxes, and (on top of that) have donated lands to public infrastructure projects “which have benefited Central Floridians without burdening them with additional taxes for development and municipal services.”

Iger has discussed just how valuable Disney has been to Florida and this webpage only emphasizes that. It notes that the district is a “cost-effective mechanism for ensuring that tax burdens for municipal services supporting Walt Disney World Resort do not fall on residents in Orange and Osceola Counties.”

They also note that the arrangement of the District has let Disney efficiently invest tens of billions of dollars in Florida by maintaining the  “highest development and service standards on Disney property” (potentially a response to some of the statements made recently about giving the state more control over inspection of things at Disney), create thousands of new jobs, attract visitors, and generate more tax revenue for the state.

The page goes on to note just how much the District has done from an environmental perspective when it comes to conservation, solar farms, and managing waste. Plus they note, “The special taxing district employees also conduct 90,000 analyses annually to ensure water quality meets or exceeds state and national standards. This is important as the waterway known as Reedy Creek which passes through District property is part of the Florida Everglades Headwaters.”

This is interesting given recent developments by the new board of supervisors of the District. In a recent meeting, one individual gave a report to the board indicating that there is some land that the District owns directly that is currently stuck being used as a place to spray reclaimed water due to some restrictive covenants Disney agreed to with the old board.

The individual fully admitted that such use is good and necessary, but suggested that the District has other lands that could be used for that purpose and that instead this particular land (if freed from the restrictive covenants) could be used for workforce housing or something else.

Disney may be subtly responding to that — reminding the board of some of the environmental reasons why Disney has done certain things over the years. You can see the full webpage about the value of Reedy Creek here.

But it goes beyond that. According to CNBC, Disney has also stepped up its lobbying efforts. According to some sources, Disney has been pushing its lobbyists to increase their efforts to “influence the Republican-controlled state Legislature and to target land use-related bills that could hurt the company.”

Disney’s lobbyists have reportedly been instructed to aggressively work against bills that could hurt Disney. One bill that the lobbyists are watching carefully is SB 1604. This is the bill to which an amendment was introduced recently that could impact the development agreement Disney entered into with the old board, which gives Disney a great amount of power in the District.

A “longtime ally” of Disney CEO Bob Iger said Iger “feels Disney is ready for the fight but I think he’s sort of watching the governor try to float his own boat on this one.” A Disney spokesperson, however, has said that view of Iger is “not accurate.”

Others have chimed in on DeSantis’ actions, with Donald Trump and others criticizing the Governor’s battle with Disney.

So, what’s next? The new board of the District will be holding its next meeting on April 26th, at which point they will determine whether to declare some of Disney’s agreements with the old board as “void ab initio” (void from the beginning).

That meeting is also set to feature a second public hearing on a resolution where the board would declare its “superior authority” over certain decisions in the District.

We’ll keep an eye out for more details on that and share updates with you soon. Stay tuned.

Click here to see more from the latest Reedy Creek Board meeting