The man who wrote the book about Disney’s relationship with Florida said that removing Disney’s special district status would have to absorb the Reedy Creek Improvement District, an economic cost not only to the surrounding municipalities, but to the state as a whole. Warns that it may take.
Rick Foglesong wrote “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando”.“ This is a record of a love affair with Disney in Florida.
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This book specifically examines the Reedy Creek Improvement District, an area where Disney can govern itself.
“I’ve come to call it the Vatican with mouse ears,” Foglesong said.
This district was an important part of Disney’s contract to build a theme park in Orlando.
“They convinced the Legislature in 1967 to create an autonomous political unit,” Foglesong said.
But now, more than 50 years later, lawmakers have passed a bill to revoke the status of a special district in the park.
Foglesong said the dissolution of Reedy Creek means that all services provided by the district must be paid by either the local government or the state nearby.
“If Florida intends to do so, it will come from income generated by contributors to sales tax in Jacksonville and elsewhere in the state,” Fogreson said.
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Losing the status of a special district can also slow down Disney World’s new growth or encourage companies to consider investing elsewhere.
The Governor of Colorado has already offered to move the company to the state.
“They can’t move Walt Disney World, but they can move further expansion to other states,” Fogle Song said.
And Foglesong said the shift could be a drag on the state’s tourism economy as a whole.
“Some of the people who may have come from Ohio to Disney World in Orlando will stop by elsewhere in the middle of the rest of the state,” Fogle Song said.
Under the bill, Reedy Creek will not dissolve until June 1st next year, and lawmakers may consider the issue for over a year to determine if the rehabilitation of Cinderella Castle is worth the potential economic costs. I can do it.
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