In a special legislative session this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will seek to dissolve Disney World’s special status, permanently ending “the corporate kingdom” and bringing it under state control.
According to DeSantis’s office, the legislation will end Disney’s self-governing status and impose a state-controlled, term-limited board appointed by the governor to run what’s now called the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
The legislation would allow the state to tax Disney for possible road projects outside the district’s boundaries. It would ensure Disney, not the taxpayers, pays $700 million in unsecured debt.
It would keep control of the district out of the hands of what the governor’s office called “the leftist local government in Orange County,’ which it said had threatened to leverage the situation to raise local taxes….}