FL Considering Repealing Law That Lets Disney Govern Itself in Central Florida
The following content contains reference to a popular topic flooded with false information from U.S. government news sources like National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, and other large corporate media outlets that promulgated it: H.B. 1557, “Parental Rights in Education.” Read bill text and summary before drawing conclusions.
April 1, 2022 Updated 8:33 A.M. ET
ORANGE COUNTY (FCV) – After the Walt Disney Company said they plan to go after Florida schools in an effort to allow teachers to teach young children as young as 5 about sexual orientation, there are new rumblings of repealing the law that lets Disney govern itself in the Walt Disney World area.
Governor Ron DeSantis and other Florida Republicans were staunch supporters of H.B. 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act falsely named the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” by left-wing propagandists. Disney came out against the legislation and vowed to have it “repealed.”
At a press conference in Ponte Vedra Beach on Thursday, DeSantis issued remarks on the idea of legislators repealing the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which allows the company to govern itself in Walt Disney World on things like building codes, zoning, and electricity.
Aside from their support for teaching children about sex, DeSantis said that the repeal could be part of a larger effort to strip Disney of “special privileges,” as other companies in the area, like Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld Orlando, are governed by the Orange County government.
“I would not say that that’d be retaliatory. I mean, the way I view it is, you know, there are certain entities that have exerted a lot of influence through corporate means to generate special privileges in the law,” he explained.
On principle, DeSantis said that, “I don’t think we should have special privileges in the law at all.”
“Yesterday was the 2nd meeting in a week w/fellow legislators to discuss a repeal of the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which allows Disney to act as its own government,” Florida State Representative Spencer Roach (R) said in a Tweet earlier this week.
“If Disney wants to embrace woke ideology, it seems fitting that they should be regulated by Orange County.”
According to the Reedy Creek Improvement District’s website, at the time of the resort’s initial founding and construction in the 1960s and early 1970s, Orange and Osceola County did not have “the services or the resources to bring the project to life.”
Under the 1967 Act, Reedy Creek is effectively its own “county government.” Local taxpayers do not pay for services in the District.
The City of Bay Lake and the City of Lake Buena Vista are their own sub-entities of the District, housing various parts of the Walt Disney World Resort, with their own fire chiefs, mayors, and city council members.
So far, there is no proposed legislation to repeal the Act.
