For over a year now, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Disney Company have been locked in an incredibly bitter and nasty public fight that is rather exceptional for those of us who have watched and experienced how Disney operates in Central Florida for decades.
In a nutshell, Disney was granted extraordinary powers to essentially be a government in all but name when the Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in 1967. At the time, Disney was in the process of buying up massive amounts of swamp land in Osceola and Orange County with the aim of building a new theme park empire that would make Disneyland in Anaheim pale in comparison.
After experiencing California’s love of bureaucracy to stifle business interests first hand, Walt was determined to ensure that his next theme park venture would be done with as little government meddling as he could get away with. With judicious campaign contributions and the lively expectations that the politicians would dance to the tune of his lyre, Disney quietly bought the half of the legislature in Tallahassee worth buying and then twisted their arms and the Reedy Creek Improvement District was born.
He also ensured that Osceola and Orange County wouldn’t get in his way by buying most of their politicians as well.
His ultimate aim besides a new Magic Kingdom to corner the theme park experience on the East Coast as he had in Anaheim was to have Reedy Creek host his ultimate planned community as a prototype of how he envisioned future towns and cities would be designed. EPCOT (the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”) was no accident…Reedy Creek was created with it being the plan for any other Disney-inspired and owned communities in that area to follow.
Having secured their own pocket kingdom that was exempt from the vast majority of state law as well as county ordinances and then ensuring that they’d always have a strong majority of politicians at all government levels that would not dare to double-cross Disney’s interests, Disney would spend the next few decades enjoying a quiet but near absolute power over their own domain that was the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
It was rare for the ordinary people to see Disney twisting arms and doing as they pleased. They never really had to…that’s what the politicians they’d bought and ensured stayed bought were sent to Tallahassee to do.
Usually the only real visible presence of the usually invisible hand of Disney would be the legions of WED lawyers armed with release forms who would seemingly appear out of thin air if someone stumbled or fell in the parks to head off any potential lawsuits and liability.
People would look at me in disbelief when I’d try to describe the reality of Disney’s absolute rule over their domain. How in the hell was that even possible?
The Reedy Creek Improvement District and a succession of Disney CEOs who knew how to exercise quiet power and utter domination over those who would oppose them. Oh, they’d rarely open up against those who vexed them with both barrels but their opponents standing for election would suddenly find themselves with more campaign contributions than they’d often know what to do with and guessing at who was behind them and the reasons why learned to dance to the tune and not double-cross the corporation buying them their shiny new job.
Michael Eisner and Bob Iger are grand-masters of this game of thrones and made sure their throne and their kingdom was covered in massive amounts of gold.
Fast forward a couple of decades and now they’ve retired and been replaced by new CEO Bob Chapek. I can only guess at how badly his training for the top job failed because it was patently clear he learnt nothing from his predecessors. Making incredibly unpopular changes to the experiences in the theme parks and the creative direction of the company was bad enough but his fatal error was failing to understand that the true essence of his power and dominion over the Reedy Creek district came through cultivating relationships with the politicians and quietly buying and manipulating them from the shadows.
Enter Ron DeSantis, newly elected Governor of Florida with eyes on putting his hiney in the seat behind the Resolute Desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by being even more right-wing extremist than arguably his most infamous recently arrived citizen and his predecessor in the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee and now US Senator Rick Scott who bears more than a striking resemblance to the Dark Lord and not just in in terms of general appearance:
It’s clear that Governor DeSantis has hitched his wagon to trying to wrest former President Trump’s base away from the ex Cheeto-in-Chief by simultaneously being even more extreme but trying not to look as obviously deserving of time answering charges in the prisoner’s dock and then being remanded to chokey (though arguably that stunt of trafficking immigrants from San Antonio TX to Tallahassee for a photo op before flying them off to Martha’s Vineyard and unceremoniously dumping those poor people there really ought to have DeSantis see the inside of a jail cell…just saying!).
Among other things, his cronies in the legislature crafted the so-called “Parental Rights in Education” law.
You may have heard it’s more popular name: the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
That bit of legislation really did not please the occupants of Disney’s C-suite.
Normally when that lot finds themselves put out by things going on in the legislature that has the potential of dramatically affecting Disney’s bottom line, they quietly yank the chains of their paid minions in both chambers to ensure that the offending bill never sees the Governor’s desk.
Very rarely would you see Disney’s hand directly manipulating the process.
Bob Chapek really shocked us long-time Disney watchers by stating the Disney Company’s vehement opposition against the law…and doing so very publicly.
To be fair, I happen to think that the law as it was written is too draconian and rife with many unintended consequences and unfair persecution of the LGBTQ+ community. Whilst I have some sympathy for the notion that most K-3 kids do not have a sufficient capacity to understand the nuances of a much more complicated gender spectrum than we ever had to deal with, the fact is that the spectrum is here and it’s not going away and laws that try to actively deny the reality of their lived experiences are not compatible with the United States we would truly wish to be.
Chapek’s fatal mistake was allowing that bill to become a formal proposal in the first place. He blithely ignored the Disney playbook that had served them so well for over 50 years and it was never changed because it worked so well.
Of course, Governor DeSantis doesn’t seem to be one who will brook any sort of public resistance to his policies (rather ironic considering Disney tends to operate in much the same way when some of their more questionable policies are resisted!) and seems more than happy to inflame a culture war to burnish his anti-LGBTQ+ credentials which would play well with the rather rabid Republican base whose support he desperately needs to mount a leadership bid and run for the White House in 2024.
The war was on like Donkey Kong and DeSantis would try to ram through another bill designed to eliminate the Reedy Creek Improvement District entirely. And he might well have succeeded until his creatures in the legislature who theoretically represented quite a few taxpaying Floridians in Osceola and Orange County who found out that they were going to be on the hook for Disney’s debts should Reedy Creek be eliminated.
A $1 billion special tax assessment would not go down awfully well with those citizens and I can guarantee you they’d remember exactly who quadrupled their already insanely sky-high property tax bills (because Florida has no income tax, property tax is the big cash cow for government and the valuations are so insane that there is a “Save Our Homes” Amendment in the Florida constitution that caps assessment rises to 3% per year and you rarely see a county not apply the full 3% increase as each year is a revaluation year.).
DeSantis ended up changing his strategy to not destroy Reedy Creek outright but rather rename it the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District” and pack it’s governing board of directors with loyal stooges of his own choosing.
By this point, Bob Chapek had been ousted as CEO after just having signed a contract extension and Bob Iger returned as CEO to clean up Chapek’s mess and then spend time finding a proper successor to manage Disney’s power in the way it has always been done…quietly and behind the scenes with as little fuss and controversy from the politicians as possible.
Many people wondered what the next move from Disney would be because they had returned to their usual stance of keeping their cards close to their vest.
Those of us who knew how Disney tends to operate knew what was coming. The letter of the law and the contract rules supreme with Disney and they have the best lawyers in the business in crafting legally binding agreements that not only will kick you hard several times in a very uncomfortable location but have clauses that will require you to publicly tell the world that not only did you deserve those kicks but you actually love it when they do so.
This is why Bob Iger returned as CEO and can you imagine the nasty surprise the newly installed board of the Governor’s choosing discovered recently?
It starts with these seemingly innocuous minutes from 08 Feb 2023 which was the last meeting of the Board of Supervisors prior to DeSantis appointing the new members. You can read it at your leisure but the really important bit is Item 6A of the agenda being the final reading of a Chapter 163 Developer’s Agreement and the ominous line that it had been properly publicly noticed (to comply with the “Government in the Sunshine” act).
Seems innocuous enough, eh? Chapter 163 agreements are fairly common and are meant to provide the developer with a measure of certainty to keep governmental agencies from unduly restricting their plans.
This agreement between Reedy Creek and Disney as the “Master Developer” lasts for thirty (30) years.
But the real killer clause is buried in Section II (D)(2) on page 6 where the Master Developer owns *ALL* of the developmental rights and entitlements and that any proposed development that infringes upon those rights requires the Master Developer’s prior written approval.
In other words, Disney effectively has an ironclad veto against any attempts by a board of supervisors about to be populated by hand-picked people whose qualifications are that they are the Governor’s pals and/or large donors and their willingness to channel the Governor’s hostility toward Disney through Reedy Creek.
And they have that veto for at least 30 years or until Disney outlasts the Governor and his stooges and retakes control of the board.
But wait…it gets even better!
At the same time the pre-DeSantis Reedy Creek supervisors are agreeing to that Chapter 163 developer’s agreement, they also agreed to a set of restrictive covenants.
Covenant #5 and it’s sub-parts are where Disney flatly denies Reedy Creek the rights to use Disney’s name or any sort of Disney intellectual property without Disney’s prior written approval (good luck!).
That seems rather embarrassing when Reedy Creek was brought into being by Disney for the furtherance of Disney and at the time that was seen as forever and ever (amen!).
Ouch.
Why Lando, yes it does!
These covenants term covered in Covenant #7.1 is that they will be effective “in perpetuity unless all or certain portions of the provisions of this Declaration are expressly terminated as provided elsewhere herein; provided, however if the perpetual term of this Declaration is deemed to violate the “Rule Against Perpetuities,” or any similar law or rule, this Declaration shall continue in effect until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration.“
I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of His Majesty the King but I have to say the many branches of that particular tree have definitely come to be useful for Disney in this instance.
That ought to buy Disney at least a couple hundred or more years by which time DeSantis will likely be a footnote in history at best.
This is why Bob Iger is worth his weight in gold.
The newly appointed supervisors just found out that they’ve got little to no actual authority but still have all the responsibility should things go wrong, Disney’s got a huge veto, and these people are going to rack up huge legal bills just to find out that it’s exceptionally rare that Disney doesn’t get what Disney wants.
WED lawyers don’t screw around and they don’t screw up. I have no doubts they scrupulously complied with every last law and regulation DeSantis and the Florida Statutes could throw at them and these two agreements lawfully entered into with a unanimous vote of the outgoing Reedy Creek board with such long term will withstand any challenges in court.
Game. Set. Match.
As emotionally distraught as the newly appointed Reedy Creek supervisors are today, perhaps they can take comfort knowing that Disney and Bob Iger know *EXACTLY* what they are now thanks to more than a few expertly placed kicks. 😉
If you think I’m imagining this…just take a look at the final thought from the minutes of the meeting where these two agreements were adopted.
I could see Bob Iger practically dictating it.
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach