A new bill in Florida would give the governor control of Disney's governing district

[Ivy]

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/07/1155012176/a-new-bill-in-florida-would-give-the-governor-control-of-disneys-governing-distr

 

This is of course related to Disney's not all that impressive opposition to "Don't Say Gay".

 

The Florida legislature seems to be pretty much a rubber stamp for him these days.  He seems to be almost a dictator at least on the state level.

 

Here in NC, the GOP controlled legislature is constantly stripping power from our Democrat governor.

[Vidanjali]

Seems almost every day there's a new addition to the long list of nonsense this man does. Aiming to personally appoint an oversight board for Disney operations - likely buoyed by his recent takeover of the BoT of New College who recently replaced the college president with Richard Corcoran who left majority-Black Jefferson County school district in shambles after controversial and corrupt privatization of their entire district. DeSantis has spent millions of tax payer dollars chartering flights to remove migrants, and arresting folks who unwittingly "illegally" voted in 2020 and charging them with felonies. The book bannings. The anti-LGBTQI+ laws. The gerrymandering. The voter suppression. The denial of Black history as legit American history...

 

"Republican critics of the district argue it gives Disney a commercial advantage unavailable to others." That's rich, no pun intended. I find it hard to credit that these Republicans are overly concerned about companies having commercial advantage - unless they are companies with whom they have special relationships. Similar to funneling public school funds into the hand of private interests, we'll see where the Disney money goes if this goes forward, which it very well may, as Jefferson County school district and New College serve as cautionary tales. 

 

Sorry if my venting gets off topic as far as Disney is specifically concerned - the linked article references some of the other antics I mentioned; I see all DeSantis tyranny as metastatic, and the more nonsense he pulls, the more emboldened and entitled he becomes. 

[VickySGV]

My bets are in favor of Disney on this one.  They are going to wait him out and have legal actions hitting him during an election cycle where he intends to run for POTUS where he can lose both U.S. and Florida positions.  Some of the actions will take away state tax money and shift burdens to local areas that will be embarrassing to say the least. 

[awkward-yet-sweet]

Disney shouldn't be a government.  I dislike the thought of corporations having that much power.  But you'd think people would have realized that long ago.  Doing it this way sends the wrong message.  

[Ivy]

8 hours ago, awkward-yet-sweet said:

I dislike the thought of corporations having that much power.

But they do.  Especially since the Citizens United decision from the SCOTUS.

[VickySGV]

Be a bit careful on jumping to conclusions about the Disney/Government thing.  I studied the Reedy Creek situation in both one of my law classes and my Public Administration class work 50 years ago when it was begun and it really is not what the press and DS are making of it.  The Disney company owns all of the land and provides the services generally performed by a municipality including fire, water, sewer and roads etc to residents of the area.  The area though is a Company Town and Disney does not go through the usual processes necessary in a municipality if Disney wants to make improvements in the services.  The people living there lease the housing and the leases make it clear that they do not have rights to protest the Disney modifications or improvements.  EPCOT* center was designed as an experimental housing design and structure community and attracted many advanced and improved architecture and engineering people as its residents in the early days.  The proposed impact on the surrounding communities will be several billion dollars per year that will take some budgeting magic since the State is now getting the property tax money and will have to re-budget it to those communities who will take over the district.  Disney is powerful as a corporation, but even so, is much more benign than the Robber Barons such as Big Pharma and other Health Insurance groups etc.

 

*Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow.