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The Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board, a Ron DeSantis-staffed entity that replaced Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District council, is set to consider a scathing report it commissioned that calls the media giant’s actions during its time in control over the area where Walt Disney World is located “akin to bribery.”
The 90-page document, a fusillade of allegations, will be the focus of a meeting of the Board tomorrow along with exhibits meant to show how Disney co-opted officials of Reedy Creed with season passes and other perks. It comes amid a legal battle between the company and the Florida governor.
“What is now evident is that Disney not just controlled the Reedy Creek Improvement District, but did so by effectively purchasing loyalty. The vast majority of employees at the RCID were working hard to do their jobs and were diligent in doing so. Nonetheless, because of the decisions made by RCID management and the Board of Supervisors, their work was tainted with the appearance of impropriety. As comprehensively documented within, for years, the company treated district employees like Disney employees by, for instance, providing complimentary annual passes and steep discounts — benefits and perks that were akin to bribes. Not surprisingly then, the District’s employees believed that it was their job to prioritize the interests of Disney.”
The report also says “control over the inner workings of the District was exercised in additional ways. For instance, contract offers were sent out only to a closed list of approved bidders. Not only was there no way for new businesses to enter the mix, no mechanism existed to determine whether the district was receiving the services rendered at fair-market prices.”
The district is the source of litigation between the company, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the DeSantis-appointed district board. In February, DeSantis revoked Disney’s longstanding autonomy over the area, saying it wasn’t proper for one company to receive special privileges.
Disney says the move was retaliation for the company standing against the Parental Rights In Education bill – then law — dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’. DeSantis once gleefully mused about putting a prison next to the park. In April the company sued the governor for impinging on its freedom of speech. Disney and the new DeSantis appointed oversight board have also traded suits and countersuits.
The state has numerous other special improvement districts. Disney CEO Bob Iger has noted the company’s development over decades of what was previously swampland and that it’s a major taxpayer and employer in the state, calling the Republican governor anti-business. Most recently, he said at a conference last week that “the governor got very, very angry at the company…and decided to punish the company by basically stripping its rights to a special district around Disney World that had been in place for decades. The question wasn’t even about the bill. It was about does a company have a right to free speech. And if it exercises its right to free speech, it should not face retribution.”
A footnote in the report even gets in a dig at founder Walt Disney. It quotes from a book on the formation of the district and the company founder’s desire for complete control over the property. “During early discussions of the Florida property, one company executive said that [Walt] seemed to want ‘an experimental absolute monarchy.’ ‘Can I have one?’ Walt responded.”
The oversight board also is raising alarms over perks that Disney provided to employees of the district. The Orlando Sentinel reported that district administrator Glen Gilzean informed employees that they may owe $2 million in back taxes because the “previous leadership chose not to inform staff about their IRS obligations to pay legally owed taxes on season pass benefits.” The district is now working to resolve the issue by covering the back taxes and consulting with the IRS, the Sentinel reported.
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