{"id":45419,"date":"2022-04-27T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=45419"},"modified":"2022-04-27T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:33:29","slug":"how-disney-corporation-built-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=45419","title":{"rendered":"How Disney Corporation Built In Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Daily Wire<\/a> recently posted an article titled, “\u2018Shell Companies And Shady Lawyers\u2019: Why Did Disney Get To Govern Itself In Florida?”<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Why does a giant entertainment conglomerate get to self-govern on its very own slice of land in the Sunshine State \u2014 and who is left better off as that privilege appears to be coming to a close?<\/strong><\/p>\n

…If you have ever visited Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, you have been to the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Sitting in central Florida to the southwest of Orlando, the area was feverishly pursued by Walt Disney himself as the home of his company\u2019s second theme park.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frustrated by the businesses that crowded Disneyland in California, Walt Disney set up multiple shell companies \u2014 with names like Latin-American Development and Management Corp., Tomahawk Properties, and M.T. Lott Co. \u2014 to grab tens of thousands of acres in Florida. According to journalist and author David Koenig, who has spent years covering the rise of Disney, the strategy was meant to mask Disney\u2019s intentions in the region and thereby keep real estate as inexpensive as possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were dozens of landholders, and as soon as someone heard that Disney bought lot one, they knew the price on lots two through 50 would go through the roof,\u201d Koenig explained to the Los Angeles Times<\/a>. \u201cIt had to appear as if it were just a coincidence that there were 10 different companies buying land in the same area.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disney took other measures to hide the fact that it was the \u201cmystery\u201d land buyer acquiring uninhabited swampland at a breakneck pace. A blog post from Disney<\/a> acknowledges that legal counsel Bob Foster \u2014 working under the pseudonym \u201cBob Price\u201d \u2014 took steps to obfuscate Disney\u2019s intentions from citizens of Florida.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article explains the Reedy Creek Improvement Act:<\/p>\n

For several decades, Disney has been a powerful political influence in Florida. According to data from Open Secrets, the company gave $350,000 to $610,000 to seven firms lobbying in Florida during the 2020 election year, followed by $460,000 to $719,974 to eight firms in 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, Disney\u2019s greatest lobbying victory came in the years after it acquired the large tracts of land in central Florida.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gov. Claude Kirk (R-FL) signed the Reedy Creek Improvement Act<\/a> in 1967 \u2014 the year after Walt Disney passed away \u2014 in response to the company\u2019s lobby. The legislation allowed the state legislature to establish the Reedy Creek Improvement District, allowing Disney to act with the same authority as a county government for its 39-square-mile property. The district encompasses the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, as well as 175 lane miles of roadway, 67 miles of waterway, various power and water plants, hundreds of restaurants and retail properties, and more than 40,000 hotel rooms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most importantly, Reedy Creek has permission to levy taxes, issue bonds, and write its own construction and wastewater management laws \u2014 avoiding the regulatory headaches with which other companies throughout the state must wrestle.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

No matter how the magic stars align, University of Central Florida historian James Clark concluded that there is only one \u201cclear winner\u201d from the situation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf taxpayers get stuck with the bonds, then the counties will be the big losers from this bill, and Disney loses a lot by losing the control they get from having Reedy Creek,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThe only clear winner if this bill passes is Ron DeSantis.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever you do,\u201d Walt Disney once said, \u201cdo it well.\u201d It seems that DeSantis has taken that advice to heart.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When lobbyists get their way, the result does not always favor the voters and taxpayers. The Reedy Creek Improvement Act was not a good thing–no business should be able to set up their own fiefdom making their own laws in the middle of a state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Daily Wire recently posted an article titled, “\u2018Shell Companies And Shady Lawyers\u2019: Why Did Disney Get To Govern Itself In Florida?” The article reports: Why does a giant entertainment conglomerate get to self-govern on its very own slice of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15230,140,13244,15217,11823],"class_list":["post-45419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-disney-world-resort","tag-florida","tag-florida-governor-ron-desantis","tag-reedy-creek-improvement-district","tag-the-daily-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45420,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45419\/revisions\/45420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}