The tension between The Walt Disney Company and the Florida state government has continued as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has yet to provide details on the upcoming dissolution of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District is the governing body of the land where Disney World is located. This special district essentially allows Disney World to govern itself. Earlier this year, Gov. DeSantis signed a law that will dissolve this district by June 2023, which action some believed was in retaliation to Disney’s comment on the Parental Rights in Education law (commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” law). Now it looks like the Reedy Creek District is preparing for dissolution.
After Gov. DeSantis signed the law to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, many wondered what the plan would be to replace the governing body and take responsibility for the district’s nearly $1 billion in bond debt.
Some Florida residents have taken legal action against DeSantis and the government out of fear that the debt will be passed on to the taxpayers of the counties where Disney World is located. The state has requested that these lawsuits be dismissed, stating that “Plaintiffs have no legal right to prohibit the State of Florida from dissolving governmental entities created by state law” and that the accusations are “based solely on speculative injuries that are completely disconnected from any cause of action.”
Nearly 4 months after the dissolution was signed, Gov. DeSantis has yet to provide an update on the plan for how this change will take shape. He has said that the state of Florida will likely take control of the district rather than allowing the individual counties to have control.
Florida’s head of bond finance, Ben Watkins, has said that the special district will likely be re-established. He believes that a “successor district” will take over the responsibilities albeit with less power than what Reedy Creek had before.
Whatever happens in June 2023, it looks like the Reedy Creek district is beginning to prepare. According to the Orlando Business Journal, the district “approved a plan to ease concerns from one of its top power providers.” The power provider in question (Duke Energy Florida LLC) was worried about the district’s ability to pay its debts following the dissolution next year.
The new plan involves “a reimbursement agreement with Truist Bank for a $3 million letter of credit in favor of Duke Energy.” This will ensure that all of Reedy Creek’s debts are paid through May 2023 even if the district is dissolved the following month. The district administrator of Reedy Creek said that the plan is “a safety net for Duke.”
This change seems to indicate that the dissolution will continue as planned. So far, we’ve only heard that updates will be coming soon as to what will happen to the district next year. Details have not been shared.
We’ll continue to watch for more updates on the dissolution of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, so stay tuned to AllEars for all the latest news.
Learn more about how the Reedy Creek District could be re-established.
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What do you think of the Reedy Creek District dissolution? Let us know in the comments.
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
I am not from Florida but enjoyed this beautiful state through family vacations since I was a child. As a child I never got to go to DisneyWorld but I changed that when I had children. We have been devout Disney fans for the better part of my life.
There was a time Disney was thought of as a wholesome place for families to vacation with small children . Even though I am a DVC member, I feel this is changing. There are changes taking place at Disney World that no longer set it apart from the rest of the world. When the changes are complete it will be no different than any other theme part. People are already saying the magic is gone and it has definitely faded for sure.
It cost so much to spend a vacation there, that alone is enough to dull the magic. In my humble opinion, Disney has built way too many resorts, chasing the almighty dollar. When a place is no longer one of a kind and no longer offers what others don’t, it’s desirability fades away. The old Disney is gone and will never return. There is something going on behind the scenes, we are not privy too. We just returned home after riding out Hurricane Ian in the middle of our vacation. We noticed a difference in the demeanor of the photographers while we were there. You have to pay for photo pass on your annual pass now so we try to get as many photos as possible. Every photographer we encountered were sour pusses. Usually you get some really good photographers who take the time to give you neat shots but these guys were all about take a quick photo and move you on. We were missing photos too. It was like this in every park. What’s up? There is something amiss. We have been enough to know a difference. One of the major differences is some of the employees. I have been told , they laid off so many of its cast members during Covid pandemic that over half of those people did not come back when it cranked back up. Some of them decided Disney wasn’t the company for them anymore and others decided to retire and still others either took other work or not working at all. At any rate, these new cast members have no clue what it really means to be a “Disney” cast member. In the past the young cast members were clean cut, no weird hair dos or tattoos that were visible.
I have seen it all since the pandemic. People wonder what happened to the magic? It left with the cast members in my opinion. It was the cast members that made Disney special. On a brighter note, my hat is off to the cast members at Kidani Village during the Hurricane. They were terrific with the children. No mistake, I am not bashing people because they look differently but merely pointing out, Disney built Disney World on a Fantasy Dream World and it portrayed its cast members as perfect people in this perfect fantasy. They weren’t employees but actors in a huge production. That perfect World no longer exist and I predict at some point people will realize Disney doesn’t either.
Disney has not taken any legal action against the State of Florida so far. That tells me that they have been working through many different scenarios. The bond debt will either shift to the counties or the state for responsibility in repaying. How is that ideal for the taxpayers of Florida? Maybe Disney focuses more on Disneyland & less on Disneyworld going forward.
Love our Governor!!…Desantis has done the right thing!!!!…Protect our children!!!👍👏
Disney (Reedy Creek) pays for power (and other services) now. Without Reedy Creek, the counties will have to provide services (fire, rescue, power, garbage, road work, etc). (There are no worn out or damaged road signs in Disney and no garbage on the roads. Can the counties do that?) Disney pars about $100 million (through RCID) for services, which the counties will now have to provide, paid for by the taxpayers of the counties.
Disney buried $1billion dollars in bond debt into Reedy Creek. Iger did this to make his tenor look better on the books than it was, there was no reason Disney could not have paid for its services as it went along. Iger just did this to pass it along for later CEOs to pay and affect their books. As far as will those roads look nice, this is private property, the roads will look as nice as the private owner wants them to. Think of your driveway. No taxpayer will be affected, this is not the first time a district has been dissolved, bonds issued before disillusion cannot be levied on taxpayers who did not benefit from the bonds so when the new district is setup using the more modern framework that other FL districts are run under, like Universal, the bond debt will be levied back to the new district. Disney will not fight this, can you imagine the horrible PR that would be?
Rann, Maybe Universal and other large companies should be given the same opportunity Disney has. I tend to believe Disney has ran a great Utility operation with their “freedom” granted by the government. Why punish Disney for doing something well? Granted, this all hinges on the nitty gritty truth about the reported $1B debt that Reedy Creek holds. If Disney has kept everything clean, shiny, and new in the fire halls, EMT buildings, and utilities by overspending, then that’s a whole different story.
What the heck are you talking about the counties already pay for that stuff disney doesn’t have a police they don’t have fire and rescue and they don’t have garbage or recycle that all comes from the remaining counties. Look up the disney gondola incident or look at the police officer cars at disney there all from state or neighbor county. This separation allows police to investigate disney as said in the book disney the mouse betrayed
Disney DOES pay for ‘that stuff’ (police, EMS, fire, power, sewer, water etc) through contracts with municipalities, it agrees to pay x number of dollars each year to fund the services required for the district.
I know GOP math is bad after Trump’s tax breaks for Millionaires was passed with zero accountability (I miss the fiscal conservativism of years passed) and this is more of the same, taxpayers will be left holding the tab for stupid political grandstanding. Can’t wait to sell my Florida properties and jump ship before DeSantis moves on and leaves everyone holding the bag for his bad policies.
As a conservative right winger, I still think Desantis went way too far with the “Don’t say gay” bill, creating a law for a problem that really isn’t there. (Maybe on Social Media and talk radio, but not in real life) He definitely crossed a moral line when he retaliated to Chapek’s late remarks by flexing his political muscle to show Disney just how much power he wields at the moment. This example of government overreach is exactly what my Republican party allegedly stands against, yet here’s Desantis using Government power to cause harm to a private business.
That said, Chapek grossly mishandled the situation and I’m curious to see how long it takes the Disney board to realize Chapek caused the end of RCDD and therefore, Disney is losing control of managing and maintaining vital essential services such as water and electricity. We think the reported ride closures are bad now, what will happen when all 4 parks are “temporarily closed” due to utility outages? Ian was a perfect example of how private industry almost always performs better than government when it comes to providing services of any type, except maybe sending free money to the undeserving.
You want a perfect case study of why Disney should keep the district? Hurricane Ian. When the surrounding were dealing with power outages, sewage overflows, and excessive flooding, Disney barely dealt with any of that. Maybe some flooding. The worst of it was downed trees. But they keep such a high level of care for all their industrial facilities that the general operation was able to keep moving forward despite the devastation all around them. Tell DeSantis that the rest of the state should be modeling their practices after RCID.
Neither did Universal. The district that is being dissolved was one of the first in the state is the frameworks for these kinds of self governing zones have been greatly updated. For instants, Reedy Creek has the authority to build a nuclear power plant. This district was created because Walt Disney had promised to FL that he was going to build an actual city using the entire 44sq miles of property. After Walt died and Roy decided not to go through with this, that is when the district should have been dissolved. I’m from FL and many of us have been thinking this for a while. Disney has had a very unfair advantage over companies like Universal, this change corrects that and is a long time coming.
DeSantis needs to leave Disney alone.
I am disgusted by Desantis’ attempt to stifle free speech.