Sometimes bonds are issued by institutions that really, really want a stable income stream.
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You know I actually think that Disney does put out good product both with their theme parks and movies. And I think that the Reedy Creek District should be wound down in an orderly fashion because that sort of corporation as government is inconsistent with democracy as I understand it. The fact that they’re telling DeSantis to pound sand doesn’t mean that private control of government is a good thing.
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It sounds as if Ron DeSantis intends to milk this process through a whole series of brief, hastily drafted and ill thought out bills, until he gets bored or derives no further political gain from it.
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The thing is, that district has, by far, the best infrastructure of any area of Orlando. The traffic inside the district is excellent, so much so that commuters have been driving through there just to avoid the shit roadways in the rest of Orlando.
This doesn’t invalidate your point of course, but at the same time, it’s the duly elected government who is utterly failing to do the things the district is doing better. The thing is, there are lots of democracies out there with reasonably good (or great) infrastructure. The specifics of the American democracy seem to be at play here, and why I support this district remaining until Florida can get its’ shit together governmentally.
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I read that as ‘florida meth books’ for a second.
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Depends if you’re measuring in USD or Disney Dollars.
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Yeah, I think this is the real point. DeSantis keeps making promises to his base that he knows he doesn’t have to keep. Most of what he’s pushing forward is horrendous, and it’s making people angry or happy for him. But when you look at the small print so many of the shitty moves he’s making don’t become enforceable until a future moment, so they can be easily rolled back or canceled if the political winds move in a different direction.
It’s hard to think he hasn’t calculated this.
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Coming up next: DeSantis accuses Disney of stockpiling WMDs.
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So, let me get this straight. Disney gets to run a quasi governmental libertarian experiment with basically zero oversight and they get to extort the state’s taxpayers in the process?
Nope. In this case, both sides are the assholes.
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where’s the extortion?
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TL-DR: This is all the state legislature’s fault. They made an agreement which they have now broken and they have deliberately fucked with their ability to deal with the consequences.
Longer version (far too long…):
[details=“Independent Special “thingies”, bonds, taxes, oh my…”]
Not quite. Disney gets/got to run a quasi governmental libertarian (well, more neo-feudal) thingy and gets/got to pay for everything themselves.
In order to do that, the thingy is allowed to tax Disney at a much, much higher rate than the state could.
They are allowed to issue bonds which people who want to get some return on their money can buy and so that people are prepared to do that (and thereby continue to be able to have this massive revenue generating behemoth and all this nice infrastructure in their state at no cost or effort from the state) Florida promised not to fuck with the thingy until the bonds were all done with.
So now the state is fucking with the thingy which may/should mean that the state is lumbered with ensuring that the payouts on the bonds carry on as usual or the bonds are all paid off immediately.
And some other civic body or bodies will have to be responsible for doing all the stuff the thingy was supposed to do like maintain roads and the other infrastructure–although we are talking about the USA so I suppose it’s quite reasonable to suppose that no one will do any of that and everything will just be left to decay into a dystopian film set. Disneyland becomes Zombieland?
Assuming that doesn’t happen, then thanks to the state legislature some poor schmucks on the local counties suddenly became responsible for some really hefty infrastructure without the ability to raise tax revenue at the rate the thingy could because Florida law limits the amount of property taxes counties and cities can levy to a rate which is lower than the thingy can charge and is in fact lower than the thingy does charge Disney.
So either everything collapses because no one takes responsibility for maintaining it or everything collapses more slowly because the people responsible for maintaining it are legally prevented from raising enough money to maintain things properly.
And who made the promise not to fuck with the ability to repay the bonds and made the state liable if they did, who limited the ability of counties to raise revenue, and who then decided to get rid of the thingy without any thought as to what that would mean or really any thought at all?
The state legislature is who.
Comparing this to Brexit would be a slight derail if it weren’t for that fact that the lack of thought about the practicalities of dismantling a massively complicated and fundamental system in the service of a pointless ideological gesture are strikingly similar.
The speculations that this will now be followed by an increasingly fraught period of further legislation as the difficulties become apparent seem spot on.
The main difference I can see is that US Republican politicians seem to be cheerfully free of any concern about U-turns or any need or desire for consistency, so they may have far less compunction about just dropping the whole idea and moving on to the next thing to get outraged about.
[/details]
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Can you show any example of how RCID extorts the state taxpayers in their operations? Not in the dissolution that’s being forced on them, but in their normal structure.
What about RCID is “quasi governmental”? There’s nothing “quasi” about it, it’s a full fledged government taxing district that provides government services. A government run based on the direction of the people they govern.
Everything within RCID has to meet all requirements of the counties and state they’re part of it. Which isn’t a problem, since RCID has stricter requirements than those counties and state rules anyway.
Perhaps it’s that you dislike that RCID gets to set priority and direction, to choose which things to work on when and how based on the direction of those they govern within the RCID boundary instead of based on the entire count or state. Two groups that don’t pay for or provide any services within the RCID boundary but let RCID tax those within it to pay for this. A tax that’s on top of the taxes those within the boundary pay to those other groups that provide no services.
That there is only one group within the RCID boundary doesn’t really matter. (There’s actually slightly more, but one of them is larger than the rest, to a degree that the others don’t matter in the small count or size.)
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Exactly. This district is causing no harm to taxpayers (other than perhaps envy that their districts have worse services.) All the taxpayer harm comes in the form of a shit bill by a government changing the rules on a whim.
The experiment part is surely valid, but the experiment is tainted by the utter uselessness of the current government as a control group.
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That’s what makes me far more scared of DeSantis than Trump. DeSantis is a fascist who knows what he’s doing.
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It’s a lovely thought that in arguing this in court, MoRon will essentially be arguing to overturn Citizens United. Corporation s are, in fact, not people and not entitled to 1A protections. That should be fun.
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Additionally, it is entirely possible both to praise how well Reedy Creek has done and condemn the overall idea of corporate-owned governing districts. A special privilege like RCID is not one that I would like to see given to, say, Duke Power or Reynolds Tobacco.
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Agreed. Cory Doctorow used to out this best when simultaneously calling out the marvels of Disney Imagineering while simultaneously condemning the evils of their media decisions, especially around copyright and fair use.
Megacorps are too big to look at in black-and-white. This is, of course, also true of governments, as well - I have met some wonderful people working for the FL government since I’ve moved here, as well as some institutions within that government that are run with efficiency and, dare I say it, with a focus on serving the communities they are responsible for.
The RCID, from everything I can tell, appears to be a net positive for the nearby counties by allowing Disney to Disney without affecting the counties bottom line while also improving the region as a whole. This petty fight from DeSantis seems to have both overlooked that fact and inadvertently given a billion-dollar bailout to Disney that they didn’t ask for. It’s dumb. And while I hope voters will remember this ordeal and act accordingly the current political climate of hyper-partisanship probably makes that a pipe dream, too.
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And that’s largely due to the fact that the district is allowed to tax Disney at triple the rate that the surrounding counties and cities are allowed to tax their residents and businesses. Disney is actually happy to pay much more than they otherwise would because good infrastructure is important to them.
That said, I do have some problems with the infrastructure choices that the district has made. Primarily, I was disappointed to find that there’s zero pedestrian walkways linking certain areas of the resort. In many cases if you’re staying at one of the hotels you’ve got no options for walking to some of the parks and are forced to drive or take a bus, even if your destination is less than a mile away. Totally inexcusable for a master-planned area like this.
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What special privilege would be the problem?
Paying extra taxes?
Paying for roads, water treatment, fire departments, and other public services with that extra taxes instead of with the larger governing area taxes that you still have to pay?
It’s not like there are any people that live within the RCID boundary. Being with the boundary doesn’t exclude them from any requirements of the city/county/states that they’re also within. RCID can only impose additional constraints, not eliminate any.
I’m not saying there are no advantages, but they’re not like they’re detrimental and they come with a cost.
Let’s say Reynolds Tobacco owned 45 square miles of tobacco farms. But, it’s not really a continuous block, more like nine 5 square mile farms with public roads, sewer systems, water run off control ditches and ponds between all of them. There’s also a fire department to deal with fires on the farms and medical response to workers. Scenario 1, the county collects taxes and deals with the roads, water, fire. They create, manage, and maintain them. Collecting taxes from the entire county not just Reynolds Tobacco to pay for those things. The county gets to set priority on when to change, how to maintain, and the level of service to provide. Scenario 2, a special tax district covers all those farms and there’s nobody else living within the boundary. The district collects extra taxes on top of what is already paid to the county. The district uses that money to deal with all those things. The county, which still got its money, doesn’t pay for any of it. The district is run by people selected by those within the district, which is only Reynolds Tobacco in this case. Hence, Reynolds Tobacco through those people gets to set the priority and level of service that’s provided. It’s not saving them any money, but actually costing them extra.
What’s rare is for any corporation to own enough land in one location that needs these things. Or for them to want to manage them instead of getting the surrounding area to help pay for it.
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