Disney has released a statement following the meeting with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, where the board discussed legal action against Disney for measures taken to secure rights to the Reedy Creek property before the state takeover.
Statement from Disney
Earlier today, we reported about the board meeting that took place this morning regarding legal challenges to the old board’s agreements with Disney.
Bob Hazen, of WESH 2 News Orlando, has been providing the latest updates in this ongoing battle.
We have now learned that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board, formerly known as Reedy Creek, is starting to make moves to eventually replace John Classe. Classe is an Administrator who also served when the Disney-appointed members were still in power.
Disney has just released a statement on the matter:
“All agreements signed between Disney and the District were appropriate, and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida Government in the Sunshine law.”
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has yet to respond to Disney’s statement.
Reedy Creek Property Rights
It is being said that lawyers were hired to challenge agreements Reedy Creek’s old board approved right before DeSantis’ new board took over. One of the important agreements includes the Developer Agreement — which outlines Disney’s rights over District property for the next 30 years, regardless of what the new board says.
The District property is home to Walt Disney World.
These agreements are being called “unusual” and “suspect” by the District’s legal counsel. They argued that they just found out that these agreements were all recently approved over the past few months. They were most likely put in place as an insurance policy for Disney.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District argued that the aforementioned agreements are unlawful and should not have been allowed.
Martin Garcia, the CFTOD Board Chair, discussed how powerful and rich Disney is and how they would need to take an “adversarial position” against the company. He also suggested that they take this case to the Supreme Court in “protected litigation” against Disney.
The Special Counsel indicated that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District should hire more law firms to take on Disney so that everyone has an even chance. They suggested using firms with a “deeper bench,” meaning firms that have a strong team of lawyers.
The District ultimately decided to hire more outside firms to wage the fight against Disney.
Stay tuned for future updates as the matter proceeds.
What do you think of the Reedy Creek property rights dispute? Let us know in the comments.
Check out more of our articles on the ongoing battle with Reedy Creek here:
- DeSantis Hopes Reedy Creek Board Appointees Will Help Disney Bring ‘Entertainment All Families Can Appreciate’
- Governor DeSantis Signs Reedy Creek Takeover Bill Into Law, Doubles Down on It Responding to Disney’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Opposition
- Walt Disney World President Says They are ‘Ready to Work’ With State Takeover of Reedy Creek
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It’s too bad Disney can’t up & move out of Florida. All of this because De Santis is homophobic.
Totally agree . DeSantis is an authoritarian and will squash anyone who gets in his way . He’s knocking Disney, education and Florida all because he wants to be king. His way or no way.
Question is, where is the CFTOD getting the money to hire all these lawyers?
DeSantis is trying to assume control of a private company. If Disney wanted, they could just do directly to the local county governments, and make proposals. I don’t think the local governments would be ill willed towards the largest employer in the state.
DeSantis and his Christian nationalists board members are horrible. Leave Walt’s dreams and Disney alone! Disney should have property rights.
Who has better lawyers? Disney.
Good for you Disney! Desantis is a true villain!
DeSantis got outmaneuvered by a little mouse and he might want to be Presiident?
A private company should never had been given the protections that it was given in the first place by the state government. Private companies shouldn’t be able to be mini governments and should have to follow the same laws as any other business. Just because Disney was established with these protections to self govern doesn’t mean that it was actually legal. But, this same fact is true even for HOA districts which should also not be allowed to have self governing powers.
I know this will not happen but Disney World should make Mondays a day for maintenance workers. They should close one park a week for this proposal. By doing this Disney Corporation could deny tax revenue to DeSantis and the state of Florida.