Disney’s new oversight board voted on May 1 to sue the giant entertainment corporation in state court and to defend itself against the company’s federal lawsuit.
Meanwhile, in Florida’s Northern District federal court, U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Fitzpatrick recused himself on April 28 from Disney’s lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, citing a conflict of interest.
Fitzpatrick said a relative works for one of the two parties.
The case in which Disney charges DeSantis with unlawfully retaliating against the company for exercising its speech rights will be reassigned.
At a brief meeting in Lake Buena Vista on May 1, members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board voted unanimously to sue to enforce their actions to undo Disney’s 11th-hour development agreements with the old board just before it went out of existence.
The new board says the deals were designed to circumvent its authority and are illegal.
Martin Garcia, chairman of the new district board, framed the board’s creation and recent actions as an effort to update the public governance of Disney and bring it into the 21st century.
Nothing the Same
It was this arrangement that DeSantis began undoing last spring after Disney executives came out against the state’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, which some critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”“There is nothing that any of us are doing today that we were doing the same in 1967,” Garcia said.
He ticked off a few changes in modern life—including the demise of adding machines and cash registers, which he said his father sold—and said it affected design industries, “and yes, and urban planning design.
“Urban planning wasn’t even a profession in 1967.”
“Think about the innovation that has occurred in that industry,” Garcia said. “Think about why Disney has been so successful in the past 56 years: because they’ve innovated. Innovation is the American way. And that’s all we’re trying to do with the district.
“It makes sense to all of my friends on the Right or the Left, because innovation is the American way.”
Since its creation on Feb. 27, the board has already launched a search to hire an independent urban planner, he said.
Other actions the board members have taken—in four meetings in just two months—include hiring a new general counsel who doesn’t represent Disney, new legal counsel including a former Florida Supreme Court justice, and an independent financial adviser.
They’ve authorized hiring a consultant to ensure the utility rates Disney “tries to impose on other district taxpayers are appropriate and reasonable,” he said.
They’ve authorized hiring a new administrator and an economic consultant on the district’s fiscal impact on surrounding communities. And they are studying how to help Orange and Osceola counties in the 87 lawsuits Garcia said Disney had filed against them regarding property taxes.
‘Hate Mail Every Day’
“They actually said that I believed that if you drank tap water, it would make you gay. I never said that. I don’t believe it,” Peri said.“I have gotten hate mail every day. I’ve gotten phone calls [from] people who are just so angry. They believe what’s in the press. I’ve been mocked by CNN, by Forbes. Even European media has contacted and besieged me. Even Stephen Colbert did two sessions on me.”
Peri said he had been retired and enjoying it from a career in international business and also as a pastor and head of a seminary. Then he got a call from the governor’s office to serve on the board.
“I don’t know the governor. I never met him,” Peri said. But he felt it was his civic duty to pitch in and serve on the new board, created after the legislature voted the Disney-controlled board, called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, out of business.
Peri said nothing in his long career “could have prepared me for this.” But “I would not change my decision a bit knowing what’s happened.”
Normal Folk With Experience
“These are not people who are monolithic in their thinking. They’re open-minded. They’re compassionate. They’re just normal folk who have a lot of experience.”“My entire business life, dealing with incredibly difficult mission-critical situations, I’ve never sued anybody. I’ve never been sued. Disney is suing me. You’ve got to be kidding.
“I have loved Disney World. My kids have enjoyed the Magic Kingdom. It’s wonderful.”
A man identifying himself as Douglas Dixon, owner of a Port Charlotte condo, questioned board decisions like handing over district functions to the departments of Agriculture and Transportation, which he said wouldn’t run things as well as Disney had.
On April 29, he drove from Port Charlotte to Disney World, and “I get off the highway. And what do we have? The best roads anywhere in the state of Florida.
“You get inside the Disney bubble, which has been fantastic for over 50 years, well-maintained, immaculately landscaped to the hilt. Fantastic. And you want to change that? You want to give it to the Department of Transportation?”
Dixon objected to taxpayers paying the board’s legal expenses as it fights the Disney lawsuit.
“You guys are terrible. I honestly think you should resign.”
And of the governor, he said, “I was for DeSantis until he started this stupid war and is destroying us.”
