![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bob-Iger-and-Ron-DeSantis.webp?resize=1110%2C625&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nOn Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger again addressed the situation in Florida, saying the feud is about retaliation and not about \u201cspecial privileges or a level playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is about one thing and one thing only, and that is retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation,\u201d Iger said during the company\u2019s second quarter earnings call. \u201cAnd we believe that in us taking that position, we are merely exercising our right to free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iger added that even though Disney benefited from having the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the state benefited from Disney. He also noted that Florida has about 2,000 special districts and those haven\u2019t been targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not the only company operating a special district,\u201d Iger said. \u201cDaytona Speedway has one. So do The Villages, which is a permanent retirement community, and there are countless others. So the goal here, if the goal is leveling the playing field, then the uniform application of the law or government oversight of special districts needs to occur or be applied to all special districts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this year, the state took over Disney\u2019s special district\u2014renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District\u2014with DeSantis appointing five members to the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disney filed a federal lawsuit against DeSantis and the district board overseeing, accusing the governor and others of a \u201ctargeted campaign of government retaliation.\u201d Disney filed an amendment to the lawsuit earlier this week to include recent actions such as a law that would void Disney\u2019s development agreement with the previous district board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDoes the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes or not?\u201d Iger asked during the call Wednesday, after mentioning that Disney is the largest taxpayer in Central Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe never wanted and we certainly never expected to be in a position of having to defend our business interests in federal court, particularly having such a terrific relationship with the state for more than 50 years,\u201d Iger said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn’t the first time Iger commented on the situation in Florida. Last month, during the company\u2019s annual shareholder meeting, he called DeSantis\u2019 actions \u201canti-business\u201d and \u201canti-Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ongoing fight between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney has continued to escalate in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger again addressed the situation in Florida, saying… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32120,"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":[15],"tags":[5011],"class_list":["post-32119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-disney-ceo-bob-iger-addresses-desantis-retaliation-on-earnings-call"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32119","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=32119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}