Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that effectively give the Governor and state control over what was called the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The moment the bill was signed, the Reedy Creek Improvement District became the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
DeSantis spoke from Reedy Creek Fire Station #4 ahead of signing the bill that allows him to appoint a board to lead the district. At the beginning of a news conference Desantis said “Today the corporate kingdom finally comes to an end.”
“We had a little bit of a tussle last year over school legislation,” DeSantis said. This was in reference to the conflict with former Disney CEO Bob Chapek about the Parental Rights in Education Bill. This was also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
“We have a situation here that was basically indefensible from a policy perspective,” DeSantis said. “How do you give one theme park its own government and then treat all the other theme parks differently? We believe that that was not good policy.”
“If you’re going that way as a corporation, those are not the values we want to promote in the state of Florida,” he said. “So we believed being joined at the hip with this one California-based company was not sustainable.”
DeSantis once again stressed that there will be no addition tax burden on anyone in Central Florida, this includes the municipal debt that Disney accrued.
The Florida Governor has already said who the new board will be. It will include Martin Garcia, Bridget Zeigler, Brian Aungst, Mike Sasso and Ron Peri. He said that they will be meeting for the first time next Wednesday. The District will also be starting the process of changing over its name, website, logo, forms, and contracts to its new entity over the course of the next two years.
With the bill now signed into law, there will be a few changes happening to the district. However, there aren’t as many as it looked like there would be when a bill was signed into law last year that effectively would disband the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The biggest change is that the Governor can appoint the board of directors for the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The district itself has many of the powers that its former iteration had. The District will now have to report its budget and financial data to the state and follow new staffing guidelines. It will also no longer be able to make airports, stadiums, and civic centers. It also cannot expand Disney’s borders without approval from the state. The District can also not spend public money on attractions advertising. It still has the power over planning, zoning, building, and safety codes, and retains its current tax-exempt status for property and bonds.
The bill went into law the moment it was signed by the Governor on Monday morning. Disney has not released a comment on Governor signing it on Monday morning.
