DeSantis-appointed board launches aggressive plan to counter Disney control

“Disney engaged in a caper worthy of Scrooge McDuck to try to evade Florida law,” one of the board’s lawyers said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked oversight board opened its meeting Wednesday armed with an array of new weapons in its fight against Walt Disney World, including a list of proposals that will require the district governing the largest taxpayer in Central Florida to raise taxes on itself.

“I want everybody to understand that we’re going to have to raise revenues,” said Martin Garcia, chairman of the DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors, which oversees the special taxing district in which Disney’s theme parks reside. “... In seeking to improve the functioning of the district, nothing is off the table for us.”

The need for new revenue is because it wants to provide “better services,” Garcia said, but also “because of the expenses we have had to incur to deal with the legal agreements,” a reference to the effort by Disney to pass development agreements and restrictive covenants that attempted to undermine the governor’s control over the newly constituted board.

Nearly three hours into the meeting in a Disney hotel in Lake Buena Vista, the board quickly voted to invalidate the last-minute arrangement between Disney and the previous board, with no discussion.

The action was sought by the governor after the Disney-backed board outmaneuvered him in February and entered into development and restrictive covenant agreements with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, U.S., Inc., that usurped any ability of the new board to use its leverage to influence editorial content at the entertainment giant.

But the decision to void the deal is likely to draw a lawsuit, as the legal ground to invalidate a development agreement retroactively has little legal precedent in Florida law. As the board met, Florida legislative committees adopted an amendment to state law to authorize the ability to retroactively invalidate the agreements.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/19/disney-desantis-board-lawyers-development-invalidate/