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thewayneAll because Disney decided to speak out against Florida's "Don't Say Gay" legislation. Which they didn't do until Disney's LGBTQA workforce segment and friends called the company on its position.
Now, this is going to have some very interesting repercussions. The special tax district was enacted in 1967 when Roy Disney started working on Disneyworld. Walt died in December of '66 from complications of lung cancer. The special tax district effectively made Disneyworld its own city with the ability to levy tax, build roads, it was responsible for its ownlaw enforcement, sewage, it could build its own airport and theoretically its own nuclear power plant if it wanted to. And let's face it, Disney had the money.
UPDATE: Disney does not handle law enforcement. They use Florida Highway Patrol for that. Disney Security is about on par with night watchmen, as they describe it. Orange County Sheriff's Dept maintains an office, used mainly for processing shop lifters.
And June 1 next year the special tax district goes away. TAKE THAT, MICKEY! DE SANTIS HAS YOUR NUMBER! And he'll be getting your tax dollars, too!
Or will he?
If Disneyworld is no longer a special tax district, seems to me that the local municipality is now on the hook for providing those municipal services: water, sewer, law enforcement and fire protection/EMS. And has to provide the fire equipment, too, or buy/lease the trucks/equipment from Disney on-going. There is absolutely no way the area municipality has budgeted for that as De Santis is a Republican True Believer and has been slashing taxes, causing reductions in budgets and Rainy Day funds throughout the state.
Disneyworld makes more than enough money to keep all those services well-funded for the area they're responsible for. As a big business, under the Republican paradigm of tax cuts, they shouldn't have to pay a lot as they are one of Florida's largest employer with 80,000+ employees - including all those fire fighters, EMS, police, water/sewage workers, etc. Who are no longer going to be working for Disney. Will the local municipality going to hire all of them, or are they going to contribute to local unemployment numbers?
But my point there is that if standards of service slip, Disneyworld has the right to utterly pack and slam local town council/county board meetings for not providing adequate service. According to the Wikipedia article, Walt wanted to open a theme part in the Eastern U.S. because 5% of Disneyland's visitors were coming from east of the Mississippi even though - at that time - that had 75% of the country's population.
Corporations are people, or so they say. For the most part, Disney stays pretty quiet in the political sphere. Florida just made it very personal for Disney's bottom line. The Mouse can be quite a giant when riled. It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next election cycle or two.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61179262
Now, this is going to have some very interesting repercussions. The special tax district was enacted in 1967 when Roy Disney started working on Disneyworld. Walt died in December of '66 from complications of lung cancer. The special tax district effectively made Disneyworld its own city with the ability to levy tax, build roads, it was responsible for its own
UPDATE: Disney does not handle law enforcement. They use Florida Highway Patrol for that. Disney Security is about on par with night watchmen, as they describe it. Orange County Sheriff's Dept maintains an office, used mainly for processing shop lifters.
And June 1 next year the special tax district goes away. TAKE THAT, MICKEY! DE SANTIS HAS YOUR NUMBER! And he'll be getting your tax dollars, too!
Or will he?
If Disneyworld is no longer a special tax district, seems to me that the local municipality is now on the hook for providing those municipal services: water, sewer, law enforcement and fire protection/EMS. And has to provide the fire equipment, too, or buy/lease the trucks/equipment from Disney on-going. There is absolutely no way the area municipality has budgeted for that as De Santis is a Republican True Believer and has been slashing taxes, causing reductions in budgets and Rainy Day funds throughout the state.
Disneyworld makes more than enough money to keep all those services well-funded for the area they're responsible for. As a big business, under the Republican paradigm of tax cuts, they shouldn't have to pay a lot as they are one of Florida's largest employer with 80,000+ employees - including all those fire fighters, EMS, police, water/sewage workers, etc. Who are no longer going to be working for Disney. Will the local municipality going to hire all of them, or are they going to contribute to local unemployment numbers?
But my point there is that if standards of service slip, Disneyworld has the right to utterly pack and slam local town council/county board meetings for not providing adequate service. According to the Wikipedia article, Walt wanted to open a theme part in the Eastern U.S. because 5% of Disneyland's visitors were coming from east of the Mississippi even though - at that time - that had 75% of the country's population.
Corporations are people, or so they say. For the most part, Disney stays pretty quiet in the political sphere. Florida just made it very personal for Disney's bottom line. The Mouse can be quite a giant when riled. It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next election cycle or two.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61179262
