{"id":39625,"date":"2023-11-30T14:40:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T19:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=39625"},"modified":"2023-11-30T14:40:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T19:40:31","slug":"orange-county-legislative-delegation-approves-bill-to-revert-reedy-creek-to-original-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/11\/30\/orange-county-legislative-delegation-approves-bill-to-revert-reedy-creek-to-original-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Legislative Delegation approves bill to revert Reedy Creek to original structure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Orange County Legislative Delegation unanimously approved a bill to revert the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District back to its original structure as the Reedy Creek Improvement District.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This bill, proposed by Rep. Linda Stewart, seeks to revert the district\u2019s structure to that to February 26, 2023, including its governance and organizational structure.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The measure also entails the dissolution of the current Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors including provisions such as limiting the current board\u2019s ability to manage the district\u2019s assets, except for ordinary business activities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"468\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Screenshot-2023-11-29-at-11.13.19-AM.webp?resize=1024%2C468&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-39626\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>UPDATE:&nbsp;Following a Republican walkout, a quorum was deemed to be not present, invalidating the vote. A second vote must take place in a future meeting.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Orange County Legislative Delegation unanimously approved a local bill on Wednesday that would revert the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District back to the Reedy Creek Improvement District and its original organizational structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The proposal, brought forth by Rep.&nbsp;Linda Stewart, would repeal state law that initially established the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. In its place, her measure seeks to revive, reenact, and readopt an earlier statute that established Reedy Creek as a special district, alongside a 1966 court decree. If adopted, the bill would effectively reinstate the Reedy Creek Improvement District as it was structured before February 26, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bill would additionally result in the termination of the current Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors. Current members of the board would serve until their successors are appointed and qualified and during the transition, restrictions would be placed on the board members, officers, and employees, limiting their ability to sell, transfer, or otherwise manage the district\u2019s assets, except for ordinary business activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNine months under this new board has created \u2026 major issues,\u201d said Stewart on Wednesday. \u201cThere is no transparency, the morale of the employees is horrible, and so many other politically motivated changes have occurred that affect the Disney business plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the bill\u2019s passage, delegation members have 30 days before the bill can be filed in the Florida House of Representatives. Though the measure passed the county delegation without dissent, it faces a difficult path to adoption in the GOP-supermajority state legislature and a governor who championed the reformation of the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this year, Gov.&nbsp;Ron DeSantis&nbsp;signed<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flgov.com\/2023\/02\/27\/governor-ron-desantis-signs-legislation-ending-the-corporate-kingdom-of-walt-disney-world\/\">&nbsp;legislation<\/a>&nbsp;that stripped Disney\u2019s control of Reedy Creek, officially renaming it as the \u201cCentral Florida Tourism Oversight District,\u201d and granting the governor the power to appoint its Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While DeSantis condemned Disney as a \u201cwoke\u201d corporation after it publicly opposed a law that restricts instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in schools., state legislators worked to revamp Reedy Creek, responsible for overseeing government services at Disney World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lawmakers chose to replace the five Disney-elected members with governor-appointed ones, disrupting a system that allowed Disney to govern its Florida theme parks and resorts autonomously for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Florida officials, and particularly the governor, have repeatedly stated that the changes \u201clevel the playing field\u201d so that Disney is now \u201csubject to the same laws and regulations as all other companies in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUntil Governor DeSantis acted, the Walt Disney Company maintained sole control over the District. This power amounted to an unaccountable corporate kingdom,\u201d the Office of the Governor told&nbsp;The Capitolist&nbsp;upon the district\u2019s reformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reedy Creek was created by the Florida state legislature in 1967 to provide local government services for the Walt Disney World resort. Up to this year, the district maintained its own government, with powers similar to those of a county government, and was responsible for providing services such as fire protection, building inspection, and waste management within its jurisdiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE:&nbsp;Following a Republican walkout, a quorum was deemed to be not present, invalidating the vote. A second vote must take place in a future meeting. The Orange County Legislative Delegation&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39626,"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":[6901],"class_list":["post-39625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-orange-county-legislative-delegation-approves-bill-to-revert-reedy-creek-to-original-structure"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625","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=39625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39628,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625\/revisions\/39628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}