Ron DeSantis now wants the state of Florida to take over Disney’s district & its debt

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) now wants the state to take over Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District instead of letting local governments absorb it, he said as he attacked local governments for complaining about having to take on over $1 billion of Reedy Creek’s debt just because Florida Republican lawmakers wanted to punish Disney for speaking out against the state’s Don’t Say Gay law.

Disney World, the state’s largest private employer, has operated since the 1960s under a special deal with the state where they created Reedy Creek and appoint the members of its Board of Supervisors. Reedy Creek acts like a county government over the land Disney World sits on: it provides essential services, passes zoning laws, levies taxes, and sells municipal bonds, except that it’s run by Disney for the sake of making Disney World function.

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Earlier this year, the Disney corporation issued a statement opposing Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, angering DeSantis and other Republicans. So the state legislature passed a law dissolving Reedy Creek on June 1, 2023, as a way to punish Disney for speaking out (itself a potentially unconstitutional move).

But the law raised questions about what will happen to the over $1 billion in debt that Reedy Creek has. Since the law passed last month…

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