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DeSantis-controlled board votes to cut law enforcement overtime at Disney World to pay for lawsuits [1]
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Date: 2023-07-28
The Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis-appointed board overseeing Disney World’s special tax district has voted to cut millions in police protection hired to protect guests at Florida’s biggest tourist attraction. During a Wednesday meeting, the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District cut the $8 million spent annually to cover overtime costs for law enforcement officers at Disney properties, WFTV reported. The officers are hired from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department under a contract that runs through the fall of 2024. Of course, Disney could easily make up for the $8 million the board plans to cut for overtime for sheriff’s deputies out of its huge profits.
The board said the cost of fighting Disney in court has forced it to have to find money in other places in its fiscal year 2024 budget. At the same time, the board said it would cut property tax rates by about 7% for the new fiscal year starting on Oct. 1.
It’s all part of an escalating legal and political battle between DeSantis and the Walt Disney Co. that began when Disney criticized Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill prohibiting classroom instruction about LGBTQ+ and gender identity topics in public school classrooms.
RELATED STORY: Disney is asking a judge to toss a lawsuit from DeSantis appointees
As part of his faltering presidential campaign, DeSantis has continually bashed Disney for being too woke by promoting LGBTQ+ values at its theme parks and in its movies. Disney CEO Bob Iger said DeSantis’ actions are “plainly a matter of retaliation” in a May earnings call. DeSantis’ feud with Disney has additionally been criticized by some Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also a presidential candidate, for flouting traditional conservative anti-regulatory values that government shouldn’t interfere with businesses.
All the members of the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which manages the land known as Reedy Creek on which Disney owns all the property, have been appointed by DeSantis. The previous board, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was entirely controlled by the Walt Disney Company.
It was unclear what other budget cuts the board plans to make related to its spending on Disney, WFTV said. The district’s budget plans will be finalized at a September meeting.
On Thursday, two small cities on Disney property, Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake, took steps to reject the plan by the board to take control over the program that stations off-duty deputies on Disney property, the TV station WESH 2 reported.
At Wednesday’s meetings, the district’s new administrator Glen Gilzean said the board was responding to taxpayers’ concerns by eliminating wasteful spending by the previous district and reducing property taxes. However, the proposed tax cuts will largely be offset by increases in property values. “We heard from constituents loud and clear at public meetings and while out and about in the community,” Gilzean said, according to Politico. “They do not want their tax rates to go up. We took their concerns to heart.”
Politico reported Disney had cause to be concerned about security at Disney World. Iger revealed in his 2019 memoir, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” that Disney World had been the Pulse nightclub shooter’s initial target before the gunman saw police in the area. The gunman then searched online for nearby high-traffic areas to carry out his mass shooting before attacking Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people.
Gilzean has been in the news recently for another reason: The administrator, who is Black, headed the task force responsible for drawing up new standards for African American studies in public schools to comply with DeSantis’ April 2022 “Stop WOKE Act.” Gilzean defended the new standards that included instruction about how slavery brought “personal benefit” to the enslaved by helping them develop skills. Gilzean said the new standards “will hold teachers accountable to ensure that complete and accurate African American history continues to be taught."
RELATED STORY: DeSantis is defending new slavery teachings. Civil rights leaders see a pattern of 'policy violence'
Gilzean was appointed to his post as administrator of the district in May at a salary of $400,000, WDW News Today reported. Disney told WESH 2 that Gilzean has not been in contact with the company since his appointment.
Disney and DeSantis have been locked in an escalating legal dispute since March 2022, when the governor signed into law what became known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It prohibited classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school districts. The law was expanded by the DeSantis-appointed state Board of Education in April to cover all school grades through high school.
Before the law was enacted, Disney's then-CEO Bob Chapek, at the urging of Disney employees, condemned the Florida legislation, saying it could be used to “unfairly target gay, lesbian, nonbinary and transgender kids and families.”
DeSantis countered by telling supporters in a fundraising appeal: “If Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy,” and he then began attacking Disney as being “woke.”
Disney had enjoyed its special tax status under the Reedy District since it first announced plans to develop the Florida theme park in 1967. Disney World opened in 1971. DeSantis then began moving to take away Disney’s control over the special district. In February, the state legislature removed Disney’s power to appoint the members of the district’s oversight board, and moved the responsibility over to DeSantis.
As one of its last actions, the Disney-controlled board passed restrictive covenants that limited the authority of the new board to control such matters as future expansion at the complex. Once in power, DeSantis’ appointees nullified these covenants.
Disney then filed a federal lawsuit in the spring that accused the state government of illegal political retaliation for the company’s opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” law when it changed the Reedy Creek district. Iger noted in his May earnings call that DeSantis did not take any action against other special districts, including the Daytona Speedway and The Villages retirement community, which is a Republican voting stronghold.
The new district filed a state lawsuit challenging the development agreements signed before the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board took over. Disney has filed a motion to dismiss that lawsuit.
In June, DeSantis’ attorneys filed to dismiss Disney’s federal lawsuit, claiming he had “legislative immunity.” On Wednesday, just hours before the board met, Disney attorneys responded to the motion to dismiss by claiming that DeSantis was trying to “evade responsibility for his actions,” according to the entertainment website Deadline.
Deadline quoted from Disney’s response to DeSantis’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which argued that the governor is not immune from being sued.
“The Governor seeks to evade responsibility for his actions on a narrower ground, asserting that a governor cannot be held officially liable for implementing, administering, and enforcing state laws that punish residents for political statements violating a state-prescribed speech code,” the company said. “The motion seeks dismissal on Article III standing, sovereign-immunity, and legislative-immunity grounds, but those principles have no application here.”
DeSantis has also gone after Disney in other ways. In May, the legislature passed a bill mandating state inspections of Disney World’s monorails. DeSantis has also promised to raise hotel taxes and institute tolls on the roads around Walt Disney World Resort property, and suggested the idea of building a prison or another amusement park on space directly beside Disney land, according to WDW News Today.
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