Good day all. Back in the 1960’s Florida set up a special governmental district called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, (RDIC). It was set up to, basically, help Disney set up Disney World and the other Disney parks. The problem with the RDIC is that it became a wholly owned division of Disney Corporation.
As I started to work on this post, I was listening to some podcasts starting with The Legal Mindset regarding the release of an audit done by the successor to the RDIC, The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The whole reason for the dissolution of the RDIC and the creation of the CFTOD has been covered by others. The short version, when Florida started going after child groomers and passed a law to keep certain books out of schools, Disney attacked them, calling the new law the “Don’t say gay” law. (Which it isn’t)
The Florida Legislature, which has been seeing problems with the old RDIC, decided to kill it and create a new district. The new district came in and started looking at the books. What they found concerned them, so they called in a team of independent auditors. The formal audit was released today and it was devastating for Disney.
Be advised that the video is 4 hours long, and most of it is just district business. You may want to skip ahead about 90 minutes and then search for the start of the presentation on the Audit by the auditors. Now what did the auditors find? They found a lot, and from the podcasts I’ve been listening to, Disney and the management of Disney, (Hi Bob), are in major legal jeopardy. Here are the details from the Daily Wire:
Disney secured the ability to effectively govern itself in Florida for more than half a century by performing a “bait and switch” on the state, and used its “complete and unaccountable governmental power” to “maximize its profits” at “the expense of the public good,” according to an independent audit of the entertainment giant’s role in the state.
The audit of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), which was established by Florida to bring Disney’s business to the state in 1966, found that Disney seized complete control of the government entity, and used the structure to establish itself as one of the world’s largest corporations. The report, obtained by The Daily Wire, says the steps Disney took to maintain control over RCID are “shocking,” and that its establishment “facilitated the most egregious exhibition of corporate cronyism in modern American history.”
The report comes nine months after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis eliminated the Disney-controlled district, in a move his critics said was motivated by his political fight with the company. DeSantis said he took action because Disney should “live under the same laws as everybody else,” and that “allowing a corporation to control its own government is bad policy.”
From what I have heard, the Florida State Government has had issues with Reedy Creek for a while before the legislature dissolved it and created a new district. The new district managers came in and started finding things that Disney didn’t want to come out. This was one of the reasons they sued Florida and DeSantis. They wanted to get the old Reedy Creek back into play to cover up what looks like a decades long Continuing Criminal Conspiracy.
The audit’s findings will likely be seen as a vindication of DeSantis, with the report stating that RCID’s 55-year stint “represented a stunning deviation from the good governance standards of the State of Florida.”
The Daily Wire story then goes into a lot of technical details of the audit, such as what they auditors looked at. What they found was damning to say the least.
It found that Disney used shady tactics to maintain its control of power, hand-picking government officials, and making payments to district employees that were “akin to bribes.” It also used the district to avoid taxation, and thrust costs on taxpayers in surrounding communities.
I do believe that tax evasion is illegal. That is going to cost Disney Corporation potentially billions, not to mention the potential criminal charges against those who were involved. (Think the Chief Financial Officers and corporate lawyers)
When Walt Disney proposed the project back in the 60’s, he also wanted to build a super modern city. Walt Disney died before the Reedy Creek Improvement District was approved by the Florida Legislature. He probably meant what he said when he announced he wanted to build a city of tomorrow. That ended before he was put into the cryofreezer.
“The RCID was a mousetrap,” the report states. “Disney dangled savory cheese in front of the Florida Legislature and the people of Orlando, but quickly abandoned its city-building pretense.”
George Mason Law School Professor Donald Kochan says this was always Disney’s plan, because having a real population in the district would threaten its control.
“The historical record demonstrates that Disney disdained voters from the outset and did not want its special district or its corporate choices to be subject to public accountability through popular elections,” Kochan states. “Documentary evidence from Walt Disney himself makes clear that he did not want permanent residents in his model community.”
Now I didn’t hear about the documentary evidence regarding Walt Disney, so, yeah. It looks like he flat out lied about the project to the State of Florida. Perhaps we should thaw out Walt and ask him.
The report lays out how even the democratic aspects of the RCID were meticulously controlled by Disney. Board members, for example, were only eligible if they owned land in the district, so Disney would temporarily deed plots of inaccessible land that board members could hold during the duration of their service, and forfeit it back to Disney at the end. The company would even continue to pay the property tax for the board members.
Understanding that I am not a lawyer and I’m relying on others who are lawyers, this looks like tax evasion, fraud, conspiracy and bribery. It also looks like Disney Corporation had so gamed the system that they had basically created their own government that served the interests of Disney and not the people of Florida or the people who lived in the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
“Because The Walt Disney Company controlled the election of the Board of Supervisors, the Board of Supervisors effectively reported to Disney and represented Disney’s interests,” it says. “This created the potential for corruption.”
“Hardly anyone outside of the special district knew about the scope and scale of the problems plaguing it,” the auditors found. “Complete and unaccountable governmental power was handed over to a private corporation, transforming a democratic institution into a private corporate monopoly.”
I started this post the day the report was submitted to the CFTOD. Because of Real World obligations, it’s taken a few days to complete it. In that time even more information of the corrupt practices of Disney and the RCID have come to light.
The auditors also found that Disney took many steps to memorialize its control over the district in the final days of Reedy Creek, even entering into a hundred year contract with the district. The new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District is fighting to nullify these so-called “11th-hour agreements” in court.
And now we know why. Disney knew that if this audit were done that their, well call it what it was, criminal activities, would be discovered. Disney has been trying every trick in the book to get the RDIC restored, including getting their bought and paid for politicians to submit legislation to bring it back.
Democratic lawmakers last week introduced legislation to restore the district, stating that the new governing structure put in place by DeSantis, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, has “no transparency.”
That claim, that the CFTOD has no transparency is just the standard Progressive Liberal Democrat projection. One of the determinations from the audit was that the RDIC had ignored the laws regarding open meetings and documentation.
The report’s authors say Disney’s fight is not a surprise.
“No one would expect a company that’s grown obese on a steady diet of gigantic portions of exemptions and privileges to peacefully pass back the plate,” it states.
When the audit report was released to the CFTOD, it was also given to the governor of Florida and the state legislature. I understand that the State Attorney General and the State Inspector General have also been provided with the audit. From what I have been seeing and reading, the audit may be providing sufficient evidence to start indicting Disney and the old Reedy Creek managers and officials.
The audit also showed potential federal crimes as well. The question with this is whether the Biden Maladministration and the corrupt and politicized Department of Justice will actually do their jobs and start looking into the actions of the Reedy Creek improvement District and Disney Corporation. I’m not holding my breath.
What I do expect to see in the next few months is Florida’s Attorney General and the legislature doing a deep dive into Reedy Creek and Disney. I would not be surprised if there is a grand jury impaneled next year. If that happens, considering all the alleged criminal activities, Bob “Two Shower Bob” Iger could end up under arrest, and Disney Corporation could be hit with RICO charges and end up declared as a Continuing Criminal Enterprise. Stay tuned and make sure you have a good supply of popcorn.
Thatisall
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~The Angry Webmaster~
I think it’s hilarious that all this came about because Disney inc. could not keep its mouth shut. This would have gone completely unnoticed if they had focused on profits and not politics. BTW, how do you haw an anti-Semitic pedophile that’s been frozen for six decades? It’s sure going to take more than three minutes on high.