The Florida House of Representatives today voted to dissolve Walt Disney World's Reedy Creek Improvement District, one day after the state Senate approved the same bill. It now goes to Governor Ron DeSantis for his signature. But that might not mean anything.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District is a special government entity that the Florida Legislature created in the late 1960s for what became the Walt Disney World Resort. The RCID essentially operates like a county government, overseeing transportation, fire protection, planning and zoning, and utilities for the district. Since Disney only allows a handful of selected company officials to live on RCID property, the district effectively remains under control of The Walt Disney Company.
Now this means that Disney is on the hook for paying for all of these services and has the ability to issue bonds to help do that. But it also means that Disney does not need to go through the Orange or Osceola county governments for this work, either. The Walt Disney World Resort property straddles Orange and Osceola counties in Central Florida.
Dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District likely would mean that Orange and Osceola counties would have to take on responsibility for everything that Disney now does for the Walt Disney World Resort, including fire protection, road maintenance, utilities, etc. Those counties' taxpayers also could be responsible for paying up to $2 billion in debts now held by the RCID.
The bill would dissolve the RCID by June of next year, along with at least five special districts in the state that were formed before 1968. Special districts formed after that date are not subject to the legislation. If you are interested, here is the text of the bill, along with the official legislative analysis.
If that analysis seems a bit thin, well, that's because it is. But the big point to consider is that subsection (2) of Florida's statue chapter 189.072 requires a majority vote of special district residents or landowners in order to dissolve a special district. Unless Florida courts just decide to ignore Florida law, that means today's vote cannot dissolve the RCID without the approval of Disney's handpicked residents going along with it.
And you have a better chance of getting into the pilot's seat on Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run from the single rider line than that has of happening.
So will Florida attempt to dissolve the RCID without residents' approval? If so, what happens in the courts when Disney, inevitably, sues?
If the RCID goes away, how will Orange and Osceola counties adapt to take over its responsibilities? And how much will it cost taxpayers in those counties to do that?
Or was this all political theater, designed to allow DeSantis to look like he was penalizing The Walt Disney Company for criticizing his "don't say gay" education law which outlawed mention of gender or sexual orientation K-3 classrooms? (If enforced in a way that did not specifically discriminate against LGBT+, that law should ban the use of words like "he" and "she" and "Mommy" and "Daddy" in early elementary classrooms, since they reference gender and sex. Since no one believes that is going to happen, that's why critics called it the "don't say gay" law, because references to same-sex orientation are the only things that anyone believes the law's enforcement will target.)
I have not heard a word about Florida backing out of the $500 million-plus in tax breaks that it has promised Disney to move 2000+ Disney Parks management and Imagineering jobs from California to Florida. It seems to me that if DeSantis really wanted to hurt Disney, he would pull that deal. Of course, Disney would sue there, too, and likely remove those jobs - plus hundreds more now based in the Orlando area - back to California.
Going after Disney by passing a law that purports to dissolve Reedy Creek without actually doing it allows DeSantis to get his pretend victory over Disney while not actually harming Disney at all. The Reedy Creek debate also drew media attention away from the Legislature's consideration of DeSantis' gerrymandered Congressional maps, which would skew the state's delegation toward more Republicans.
If you hadn't heard, or guessed from all of this, DeSantis is up for reelection this November. And he clearly is planning a Presidential run, too. How this battle with Disney will help or hurt his political future may be the biggest question of all. And I suspect that's also the only question that Ron DeSantis really cares about anyway.
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