Disney government in dark about effect of law dissolving it
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — At the first meeting of Walt Disney World's private government since Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure to dissolve it next year, officials said Wednesday they were still confused about what the new legislation meant, even as some ripple effects were starting to be felt.
The administrator of the government, called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, said the expansion of a solar power project could be delayed because of financing challenges linked to the legislation, and the union for the district’s firefighters expressed concerns about what the dissolution might mean for members' lifetime benefits.
After the meeting, Donald Greer, who has been a member of Reedy Creek’s board of supervisors since 1975, said the board could not provide clear answers on those issues because “we don’t know where we are going.”
“The district may have a response as soon as we know what it means, but I don’t know if anybody knows what it means. I don’t think anyone has deciphered it,” Greer said.
DeSantis signed the measure into law last week in a move many saw as punishment for Disney’s opposition to another new law barring gender identity and sexual orientation instruction in early grade school, which critics call “Don’t Say Gay.” It was the latest front in a culture war DeSantis has waged over policies involving race, gender and the coronavirus, battles he has harnessed to make himself one of the most popular Republicans in the country and a likely 2024 presidential candidate.
Last week, a day before DeSantis signed the bill into law, the Reedy Creek Improvement District sent a statement to investors that said it would continue its financial operations as usual. The district wrote that its agreement with the state forbids Florida from...