{"id":31474,"date":"2023-03-29T18:51:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T22:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=31474"},"modified":"2023-03-29T21:19:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T01:19:23","slug":"district-to-investigate-disney-after-shocking-contracts-zipped-through-in-11th-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/03\/29\/district-to-investigate-disney-after-shocking-contracts-zipped-through-in-11th-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"District to investigate Disney after \u2018shocking\u2019 contracts zipped through in 11th hour<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The new district encompassing Walt Disney World hired firms to audit and investigate newly-approved long-term agreements between the previous Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Walt Disney Company.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Reedy Creek Improvement District approved development agreements with Disney a day before the Florida House voted for the governor to control the district.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed members to the newly-established Central Florida Tourism Oversight District to oversee the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe development agreement essentially strips the government of the government powers and gives those powers to Disney, which is, obviously, in our view an overreach,\u201d Brian Aungst Jr. told reporters after the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special counsel for the newly-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District found the agreement \u201chighly unusual\u201d and \u201csuspect,\u201d notifying the board the weekend leading up to the Wednesday meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to outline for you why these are unusual documents and the problems that I have just spotted with them initially,\u201d special counsel said. \u201cAnd I think this warrants additional investigation and evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taryn Fenske, the communications director for the governor\u2019s office said the office is aware of Disney\u2019s \u201clast-ditch efforts\u201d to execute contracts prior to a new law that transfers rights and authorities from the former Reedy Creek Improvement District to Disney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn initial review suggests these agreements may have significant legal infirmities that would render the contracts void as a matter of law,\u201d Fenske said. \u201cWe are pleased the new Governor-appointed board retained multiple financial and legal firms to conduct audits and investigate Disney\u2019s past behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special counsel told board members that as of Feb. 8, no other property owner in the district can expand or develop their property without buying development rights from Disney under the agreement. They believe the agreement is filled with \u201cunlawful\u201d delegation of legislative authority to a private party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI cannot tell you the level of my disappointment in Disney,\u201d one board member said. \u201cThis essentially makes Disney the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chair, Martin Garcia, said it appeared the agreement was trying to \u201cnullify\u201d the work of the legislature and the governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat it looks like to me is because Disney has the Magic Kingdom, they thought they could be king for the day,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development agreement reportedly prohibits the district from regulating the heights of any structure that Disney builds in the entire district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like this. The timing circumstances in terms of the [development agreement] showed that the intent of the DA was to circumvent the enabling act of this district and to bind the hands of this board and future boards,\u201d special counsel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also would require the district to pay Disney fair market value for properties needed to build roads and utilities for public projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special counsel said it takes away the board\u2019s legislative, budget and appropriation authority to revise its capital improvements program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found another document that\u2019s just as shocking and abnormal, which is a set of restrictive covenants that the district signed in favor of Disney,\u201d the special counsel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All agreements signed between Disney and the District were appropriate, and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida\u2019s Government in the Sunshine law.<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walt Disney World statement to WESH<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aungst said after the meeting he is \u201chopeful\u201d that Disney will work with the board to \u201ccorrect\u201d the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, we\u2019re going to have to deal with it and correct it,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it\u2019s a subversion of the will of the voters and legislature and the governor, and it completely circumvents the authority of this board to governor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aungst said the board is not taking an \u201cadversarial position\u201d to Disney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are defending ourselves and we\u2019re defending the people,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to be prepared for what the next steps are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the meeting, special counsel discussed Disney\u2019s wealth, access to lawyers and resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pact was quietly signed on Feb. 8, the day before the state legislature passed a bill<\/a> reshaping the leadership structure and changing the name of Disney\u2019s Reedy Creek Improvement District. DeSantis taking control was meant to cap off a retaliatory move by Florida Republicans for Disney\u2019s opposition to the so-called \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law. Under the law, he has the authority to appoint every member of the special tax district\u2019s five-member governing body. It was intended to corner Disney into keeping quiet on cultural issues or risk having the state disrupt company operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement restricting the new board\u2019s rights is \u201cin effect until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document mentions that the \u201cperpetual term\u201d of the deal could be voided if it\u2019s deemed to violate the so-called rule against perpetuities, a centuries-old contract rule that prohibits the uncertain endless exertion of control over the ownership of private property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new district encompassing Walt Disney World hired firms to audit and investigate newly-approved long-term agreements between the previous Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Walt Disney Company. The Reedy… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[4825],"class_list":["post-31474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-district-to-investigate-disney-after-shocking-contracts-zipped-through-in-11th-hour"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}