Florida - Wednesday February 8, 2023: "There's a new Sheriff in town” declared the Governor Wednesday as he and House Speaker Renner expressed confidence that a bill stripping Disney of its self-governing status will be passed during this week's Special Session.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Ocala the Governor said lawmakers "are going to pass a bill that upon my signature will remove Disney’s self-governing status.”
House Bill 9-B would effectively give the Governor control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District. It keeps the current district boundaries over the Disney Parks intact, but the District name will change after two year to ‘The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. And the Governor will have the authority to appoint all of the District’s board members.
"There’s a new Sheriff in town," said DeSantis. "It’s no longer self-governing for them. Its now going to be controlled by the state of Florida.”
The Governor also emphasized that Disney would still be responsible for District’s outstanding debt, contracts and tax, obligations which will not fall on Florida taxpayers. “Disney is going to pay its debt. Disney is no longer going to have self-government. Disney is going to pay its fair share of taxes and Disney is going to honor the debt and that’s exactly what this piece of legislation will do.”
And its likely Disney’s taxes will be raised he said. “There is a provision in there that gives the state the ability to tax Disney for a lot of the benefits that they’ve accrued over the years. So, they’re going to end up paying more taxes.”
House Speaker Paul Renner echoed the Governor confidence that the bill will become law. “If you look at the bill there’s at least a dozen things where powers that they had, like building their own nuclear power plant, are gone." he said. "There is another dozen things that are modified. But the most important thing is they were the watchdogs of themselves, and now they’re not. Now the Governor’s appointees are going to be fully, 100%, in control of that Special District.”