Just before Florida took control of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Development, the Happiest [Company] on Earth, the house of mouse had one more trick up its sleeve.
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Disney, DeSantis, and the Battle For Control
The Walt Disney Corporation and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida have been at odds over the last 12-18 months. DeSantis has targeted Disney’s politics and has taken action against the company’s special status in Florida. The Reedy Creek Improvement District allowed Disney to oversee the public services provided to its sprawling resort and manage it under its own control. The development agreement allowed Walt Disney World Resort to oversee otherwise off-limits services like the Reedy Creek fire department and maintain basic infrastructure in its Lake Buena Vista complex.
DeSantis and the Florida legislature targeted Disney’s autonomy in taking back control of Reedy Creek. In so doing, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board replaced the prior Reedy Creek board of supervisors. Many have stated that it’s the public that loses for practical purposes, the majority of services rendered meet or exceed state requirements on Disney’s dime.
The intended purpose was to limit Disney’s ability to expand without first getting governmental approval. Most suggest this was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ response to pushback it got from Disney concerning the bill known colloquially as “don’t say gay” law which limits the discussion of sexual orientation in public schools by teachers with students before the third grade.
Disney Neutralizes Reedy Creek
Weeks before the takeover was to take place, lawyers for Disney gained approval from board members to expand theme parks to a significant extent before the transition period. The Orlando Sentinel reported the handcuffing of new board members,
“We’re going to have to deal with it and correct it,” board member Brian Aungst Jr. said. “It’s a subversion of the will of the voters and the Legislature and the governor. It completely circumvents the authority of this board to govern.”
But, of course, Disney claims it did nothing wrong:
“All agreements signed between Disney and the district were appropriate and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida’s Government in the Sunshine law,” an unsigned company statement read.” – Orlando Sentinel
It also added some fun language to the agreement:
“Disney’s lawyers also inserted a unique provision in one of the agreements, which among other things, prevents the special tax district from using the image of Mickey Mouse or any of Disney’s other “fanciful characters” in connection with the district’s property.
The term of the provision lasts, according to publicly-filed documents, “until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England.” – Wall Street Journal
What Happens Next
While it looks like a check-mate for Florida’s plan to control the company’s future plans, the DeSantis-Disney fight is far from over. A spokesperson for DeSantis made it clear the state plans further action:
“An initial review suggests these agreements may have significant legal infirmities that would render the contracts void as a matter of law,” Fenske said in a prepared statement. “We are pleased the new governor-appointed board retained multiple financial and legal firms to conduct audits and investigate Disney’s past behavior.” – Orlando Sentinel.
Disney will likely challenge any revision of the legally agreed-upon terms and the fight will go on and on as neither party cedes ground to the other. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Supreme Court of Florida or the US Supreme Court (given that Disney is headquartered in California) argue the merits of the case as the two sides push back on each other.
Conclusion
It’s an interesting turn of events and one that could reshape not only the Walt Disney World Resort but also corporate responses to the government. I can understand Disney’s desire to maintain autonomy but Universal (which does not have the same arrangement) has been able to expand without incident. It’s currently building Universal Epic, a theme park so large it matches the current size of both of its other theme parks, the water park, its many resorts, and City walk – combined.
I am personally a fan of adding the language stating that the agreement is valid until 21 years after the death of King Charles III (King of England, as of the date of the agreement) last surviving descendant which I am sure has some sort of antiquated legal validity. However, Disney’s hubris may be short-lived depending on what the courts decide. Who will have the last laugh is anyone’s guess.
What do you think? Did Disney or DeSantis overplay their hands? Does either set a precedence? Will DeSantis punish me for writing about it without permission?
This is fake news. Nobody outmanuvers the future president. He’s going to destroy this company for disagreeing with him just like a true freedom fighter should. Just remember folks, don’t cross king Ron or be woke or he is going to rain so much freedom Down on you that you are going to wish for prison.
What has Desantis done for FL? The state pays the most for its public education, yet ranks consistently towards the bottom in the education provided. It has one of the lowest teachers’ salaries in the nation. Ranks very low on healthcare but high on rates of cancer, diabetes, fatal overdoses, teen birthrates and infant mortality. I hope voters wake up to see that Desantis has not done anything substantial for the people of FL and has only stirred up people with culture war issues to mask his ineffective leadership in talking about, let alone actually working on, serious issues.
https://news.yahoo.com/no-one-talking-ron-desantis-110000499.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma
You are an idiot… Florida ranks 3rd in the country for public primary education… Know you’re facts before opening your mouth.
“Know you’re facts”, said the low information voter with zero awareness of grammar and syntax
You people argue the government should stay out of private citizen lives until it fits your narrative. “Freedom fighter” should be taken quite literally with DeSantis, but you clearly don’t understand that.
HAHAHAHA!!! DISNEY JUST RUBBED “KING RONS” NOSE IN MICKEY MOUSE [redacted by admin] AND WACKED HIM WITH A ROLLED UP NEWSPAPER!
Douchesantis doesn’t stand a chance!
Awesome!
“Going to destroy the company”? In what alternative realm do you reside?
A few facts about Disney’s presence:
$75.2 billion annual economic impact for Central Florida.
463,000 jobs (direct and indirect)
$5.8 billion in additional state tax revenue.
$409 million in sales tax collected just on the 58 million Disney World tickets sold in 2018.
DeSantis is upset because The Mouse weighed in on the contested “Don’t Say Gay” law by pausing contributions to Florida GOP candidates and sitting legislators; the governor’s actions are pure political retribution. Now, the new board is studying its response via expenditures of state taxpayer funds to big DC law firms also in cahoots with DeSantis. Everyone will posture and sue, and lawyers will get rich and this tempest in a teapot will go away in a few months.
How do people not realize your comment is satire?
Kyle, the clause about Princess Lillibet, the last descendant of King Charles III at the time of the agreement, is a clever runaround of the rule against perpetuities. It’s a long-standing principle in common law (although rarely ever brought up) that prevents someone from dictating what happens to property for generations after they die. Essentially, you can will your house to your daughter, but can’t then dictate that upon her death, it goes to a specific other person, and so on.
A standard way to preclude objections based on this is to state that it survives for 21 years after the death of SOMEONE, usually, but not always, a party to the agreement. Here, they have just chosen Princess Lillibet, which I kind of love.
It is a delightful detail, but actually using the British royal family as the measuring life for RAP purposes is pretty common, especially in this case where the contract is between entities so there isn’t an obvious real person to use. The royal family is popular because they and their descendants are widely tracked and live relatively long lives. You don’t have to worry about tracking down long lost descendants 80 years down the line to see if they are still alive with them.
Yes indeed. I’m sure the lawyers were smiling and winking, and just thrilled that they could include a Royal lives clause haha.
The Rule Against Perpetuities – the bane of every first-year law student. “Lives in being, plus 21 years” sounds simple, but far from it. No one completely understands RAP (DMNYC summarizes it well) and it’s interpreted differently in every state.
I remember a couple of RAP questions on the bar exam. The fact-patterns were long and complicated. I knew if I really tried to analyze it, I would likely get the wrong answer. So, to save limited time, I just marked “C” and moved on. Yes, I did pass the bar, but – probably thankfully – am not a property or wills, trusts, and estates lawyer.
DeSantis is happy about this. In fact, it lets him keep up the political bashing of Disney with no worry of him doing any actual harm by managing anything important.
I read the absolute best reason Disney must have included the descendants of King Charles to address the rule against perpetuities. DeSantis said he wanted to end the “corporate kingdom”… The joke is on Ron…the last descendants of King Charles and his kingdom are going to be around a long time after the governor will be.
+1 I was gonna say didn’t you go to law school but this is Kyle… And the agreement actually stipulates perpetuity. The Rap clause is just a backup.
the shine is coming off of desantis at a rapid clip as the spotlight of a national presidential election shows us he is not a strong leader – people don’t want to hear this – but trump is far superior in terms of instincts and skill – desantis would do well to sit 2024 out and learn from the master – he’s still young
Looks like the chump known as Tiny D might have to make some revisions to his autobiography now! He was so proud of sticking it to Disney – oops. Meatball Ron, what a whiny voiced, zero personality loser.
If you’re gonna shoot at the Mouse, you better not miss.
Florida is one hurricane away from having its outsized, and ludicrous ambitions, and claims as the inheritor of the post-pandemic economy, swept away.
They’ve already had hurricanes. I know you adore mandates and lockdowns but come on bro.
Disney probably will prevail here. Even conservative judges are loath to interfere with a valid contract (which this seems to be). Everything they did was by the correct process and out in public with notice and everything and it was recorded with Orange and Osceola counties before FL voted the DeSantis picked board in place.
Frankly, I was fairly surprised that Disney seemed to roll over when the DeSantis board was announced. They had to know that the change was going to make them a punching bag whenever DeSantis needed to rile up his base whenever Disney did anything they deemed too “woke” across all divisions not just the theme parks. Even if the board backed off the woke nonsense Disney would be losing its experienced board members of the RCID for incompetent members chosen for their political takes rather than theme park operations expertise. This was evidenced by the fact that Disney pulled this move off in the open and the new board didn’t even realize it was an issue until their SECOND meeting.
I should have known better to think Disney didn’t have something else up their sleeve. The genius of this move is that instead of litigating the takeover after/while DeSantis’s goons took power, they get to maintain control over the board and force the new board to prove why Disney’s move is wrong and they can drag that litigation out for ages.
From what I read of the Declaration of Restrictive Covenants Disney put together they have taken control of what they can do with all of the land as far as development of the property they own. Where they screwed up is transferring the power to zone to Disney which is not in their original founding documents. That power lies with the state.
So parts of this will get struck down by a state judge which will rise to the Florida Supreme Court and no farther. The rest is pretty much meaningless since the real power of the board was to govern themselves as their own city which Disney can’t do. So Disney can develop but under the same restrictions as every other entity does under the County and State.
As a former member of the Florida bar (I haven’t paid my dues since 2004), the clauses are all legal in Florida given that the state legislature already delegated its authority over the land in question to RCID. The RCID had the right to make the contracts at the time they entered into them because the legislature had not voted on the amendments. That original delegation might have been illegal under the law, but there are arguments in estoppel (you gave Disney this power and they have relied on it) and laches (you didn’t object at the time). In short, Disney’s lawyers are so much better than anyone in the Florida’s government as to make any effort to truly govern Disney impossible. But the good news for DeSantis is he gets to kick back more to Cooper & Kirk.
It’s an upside clown world when the lefties are cheering for big corporations while the cons are rooting for big government. This is what’s literally happening here.
That’s a great point! I always thought the Republicans were about less government.
They’re totally about less government (unless it comes to telling you what you can & can’t read, or do with your own body, or saying where funds can/can’t invest, etc. – then it’s Big Gov all the way)
Oh okay, so you agree then that we can do what we want with our own bodies, which also means the same for vaccine mandates.
Hmm, what you can and can’t do or say or read… …. what you can and can’t do with your body (forcing vaccines, anyone?) ….. sounds like you’re referring to Dems.
The lesser of the 2 evils, one can say.
I’ve been reviewing historical comments and have found that Ben Schlappig is more than likely Aaron and UA-NYC. Someone commented on one of Ben’s articles with a critical comment in the overnight hours, and UA-NYC replied less than four minutes later. Wow, who knew UA-NYC was trolling Ben’s blog that hard to respond in record time at that hour? Also, Aaron often comments in the early morning, and as Ben always states, he’s an early riser. Further, Aaron has used the phrase “live and let live” in at least two recent LALF comments–Ben has also used this phrase recently, too. Aaron always comments and fights about the LGBTQ agenda, and Ben is gay. It’s quite interesting that Schlappig is unable to comment directly using his real name, and instead has to attack people through fake accounts.
Def not Ben here. But people living in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones, sock puppet.
I’d love for Matthew to check and see whose IP address you have in common with though.
I’m sure Ben is using a VPN. Maybe it’s one of the other Aaron’s but either way Aaron’s writing style is the exactly the same as his blog & my intuition is spot on. Once you review about 500 of Aaron’s comments and his points–which are exactly the same as the propaganda Ben and his crew have been pushing for years–you can spot the major similarities which are quite uncanny. And again, how is UA-NYC replying <4 minutes after a comment overnight? Guess you (and/or Tiffany) will need to switch up your usernames for attacking others, seeing you both do that so well. These usernames are a little too obvious at this point.
Tell me. how hard do trolls like you masturbate anytime someone responds to their asinine comments?
I guess if you can’t provide a decent counterargument to what I am saying, then best to accuse me of being Ben or Tiffany for…reasons?
I’m not interested in the Desantis discussion but very interested to see these patterns in commenting and usernames. I observe patterns. The early morning commenting, use of the same exact phrasing, comma use, grammar, sentence structure, etc., spreading of the same incorrect and damaging propaganda, responses within record time, and more, are patterns. I am just curious–is Ben ever going to apologize for demanding everyone be masked and vaccinated? Is he ever going to apologize for pushing tyranny and the new world order? Or is he just going to pretend like it didn’t happen? I went back in the past week to look at 50+ articles that he wrote on masking alone. Horrifying! COVID revealed a crisis of trust in being able to trust family, friends, colleagues, and bloggers. Ben and his crew bullied others into peer pressure and scammed and coerced others into government control. He militantly pushed insanity and the installation of tyranny. This is also known as ‘The Nazi Effect’.
Hmmm…if we’re talking about patterns, you kind of just gave yourself away there. Plus, you also kind of admitted you don’t visit for the content but just to troll…interesting.
Not trolling–just calling out scams and scammers. I would have no reason to comment aside from the fact that I just noticed this pattern over the last week.
Sure, dear. Sure. We all believe you.
That’s fine..believe what you want..and I’ll believe what I want. It’s a free country, for now, despite Ben and Tiffany wanting to destroy it.
If only they were as pro-plague as you are…anyway, if you feel so strongly about Ben, why not call him out for this on his own blog?
Was COVID a plague? No. Do I feel strongly about you aka Ben? No. These are just observations. Got sloppy trying to switch between Aaron and UA-NYC.. probably is also Fantastico and others, too. Sad, because he personally felt so strongly about masks being taped to peoples faces, but can’t just say that himself when commenting here. ALT city.
Lol you can keep saying that all you want – your wacky Covid views, me being Ben and/or others – but that won’t make it true. I’m surprised you can type so well with one hand though.
Okay, “Aaron”. Not sure who wants to deal with the censorship and suppression of speech over at One Mask At A Time, but have at it. Restrictions, control, and bowdlerization should still stop.
Please tell Ben that, it’s his site. Or, you know, just don’t visit the site. nobody is forcing you to.
I’m telling you now, and I don’t visit your site often. Only when bored. Refuse to give OMaskAAT the clicks. Too obnoxious.
Again, you need to tell Ben that lol Is your grip on reality that tenuous?
I’ve already told you..that’s enough, you’ll relay the message to the multiple personalities/alts & I don’t need to anything, aside from triple masking and getting seventeen boosters, like you’ve directed everyone to do at OMaskAAT, despite not being a doctor or scientist.
Hey LOL chump – I’m not Ben, nor is he me. Been posting under this handle for over a decade now, as Matthew can attest to.
So – piss off.
Tiffany then? Or actually Ben? Do you have his page in automatic refresh to be to reply to a critical comment in three minutes overnight, when Ben himself admits he’s awake, or nah?
Also, LOL at Aaron posting at 1:55 and you posting at 1:57..I’m really fooled..not.
“LOL” must really have creamed all over his keyboard a few times by this point.
You’re really obsessed with masturbation, groomer.
Ah, the use of “groomer”…another clue to your identity.
“Live and let live”..multiple clues to yours, along with many others. I just want to personally thank you for spreading propaganda and tyranny to the masses. You must really be proud of yourself.
Eh, that isn’t a smoking gun, boo. Keep espousing your nutty views about tyranny and whatnot though, if it gives yoru life meaning.
But hey, try to not explode when you get the last word in, sock puppet. Go ahead, it’s all yours.
Aaaah FloriDUH and Douchesantis never disappoint when it comes to small minded, hateful, and ignorant retaliatory attacks on people or corporations that they don’t like. Too many other warm destinations with magnificent beaches to spend hard earned dollars at and California has Disneyland as an alternative.
Cali beaches are nice until it’s time to get in the water. Better pack a wetsuit.
Unfortunately, there’s no land for Disney to expand in California. 🙁
I have a lot more faith in the brains of the best lawyers Disney can hire over whatever political stooges Desantis can muster.
I mean Disney is powerful but we could say the same about the car industry who owned the rights for the automobile. But a young man name Ford belived that the automobile should be a item for everyone. Taking down giants. Disney has done some really bad things to piss off people in fl and in the courts most of these things are found in the book the mouse betrayed. There are a few cards here and Disney isn’t the one holding all of them.
If DeSantis hires hitmen to take out the entire Royal Family, he will have my vote for any election for as long as he lives.
So what you’re looking for in a candidate is a pro-lifer who murders children? Have you ever heard of the Republican Party? It might be your thing.
Where are all the racist & homophobic blowhards today from this site who are always fawning over Desantis, Florida, and the authoritative swamp it has become? I guess they too are busy arresting drag queens, transgender teens, and trying to control women’s bodies.
This news shouldn’t surprise anyone who has ever worked with Disney. Disney didn’t become Disney by acting like the lazy, ignorant, Republican lawmakers that attacked it. Disney hires the most intelligent, strategic, and powerful professionals money can buy. They don’t just talk fast and hard, they know what they are doing. Disney always wins.
The fight the Florida governor picked with Disney was over before it began. Disney didn’t have to go out and ‘hire 4 law firms’ to defend itself. Disney has had dozens of law firms (not mention internal general counsel) protecting itself and it’s interests from idiots like Desantis for decades. And now, Floridian voters get to pay for it all.
You watch, Disney will emerge from this in a better place financially and strategically.
DeSantis has a Harvard Law JD (graduated with honors at that) and was a lawyer for the Navy. But being able to get a decent LSAT score, write well for some ivory tower types and brown-nose doesn’t make a person wise or even careful about not screwing over their own supporters.
Disney has smarter lawyers working for it than Florida, or at least it has lawyers who seem more interested in not screwing over their own financial backers.
“Let us never forget that it all began with a mouse…”
…and it all ended when the mouse fought with all its might for the ability of teachers to indoctrinate public school children in third grade and below about sex and sexual aberrations…
The corrupt elites running Disney and other institutions tend to forget that most Americans are not as sick and perverted as they are.
Why wouldn’t Disney want to appear inclusive? Everyone is welcome! Right?
U love to include pedos because maybe you are one?
I loved the roads around the Disney theme parks. No potholes! Immaculately cared! Now… go into central Orlando and the conditions are much different.
I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t far more layers to this controversy than we realize. One blogger on YouTube claims that Florida government has been looking to revamp RCID for years, but has been kicking it down the road while they tended to more pressing matters. So, was Chapek’s sudden (and surprisingly extreme) support of “don’t say gay” a part of Disney’s strategy? Poke the bear and expect one of two things to happen: the gov backs down, or does something rash like dismantling RCID? Either way, was the legal dept. at Disney prepared to maneuver the situation to their advantage? I detest conspiracy theories, but I do think there’s a LOT more to Disney’s chess game than meets the eye.
Not sure where you are getting your Chapek info from – but he was behind the curve and employees were the ones demanding the response.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bob-chapek-disney-lgbtq-unrest-1235202205/amp/