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The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

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Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#91

Post by JaimeThompson »

zmgsabst wrote: post #68
jlmorton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a hypothetical argument that is only tangentially-related to the actual bill as-passed. The bill that was passed is deliberately vague. Beyond that, it empowers private citizens to sue teachers in their personal capacities for any alleged transgression. This is crazy. The status quo was that this question would be left up to school districts, with boards that are elected at the local level. If a teacher…

I believe that you’re ignoring the role of state and national educational agencies and groups in the dynamic. It absolutely is not the case educational material decisions are a purely local choice as the “status quo”.

If the local area has a subpopulation with enough political power to ban the teachings of things they don't like, such as basic science, should they be allowed to do that given the harm it will cause the kids and society?

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

imperio59 wrote: post #24
mikeryan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not exactly it. Disney publicly criticized the new Florida “Don’t say gay” bill. And then said they’d no longer donate to FL legislature. They’d made a 50k donation to governor DeSantis in the past so it’s more about them NOT making donations. This act by Disney had to be public or it wouldn’t have had any weight. Making those donations privately probably would defeat the purpose of showing support to the legi…

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. It does not say "don't say gay", it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade (3rd grade IIRC) and be age appropriate, which should be non controversial unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.

> it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grad

No, it doesn't. It says material addressing sexual orientation or gender identity cannot happen before a certain grade level. Applied strictly on its face, it would ban a lot of routine, uncontroversial content that no one (including it's sponsors) would want banned, because lots of material for kids implicitly addresses/displays orientation and gender identity, and pretty much no one cares except that cultural conservatives care if the orientations or identities involved do not fit their norms of exclusively heterosexual orientation and cisgender identity.

This, as well as the overt comments by the sponsors about the specific content they have pointed to as examples of concern, leads too concerns from others that the intent of the party whose base is culturally conservative and that dominates the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of Florida State government is not to apply the law strictly and even-handedly on its face, but selectively to suppress material according to culturally conservative values.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#93

Post by [deleted] »

bandyaboot wrote: post #23

I don’t think the elimination of the Reedy Creek district is meant to ever actually occur. The point is twofold. To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. When they get their people denouncing the opposition as “groomers”, they are achieving their objective.

[deleted]

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#94

Post by hash872 »

sytelus wrote: post #82

They can unwind it regardless of any contractual obligations. State can simply pass a law and dissolve any contract with stroke of a pen.

I don't mean to be curt, but that's absurd. The whole purpose of having 3 separate branches of government is that they're not above the law. The legislature (or Congress, or the President) is constrained by the judiciary

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#95

Post by makomk »

twic wrote: post #33
michaelt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it some core legal principle that legislature can't do that, and always has the power to reverse itself? The problem with having supreme power to break any contract without consequences is that nobody will make contracts with you any more. For this reason, many states have (e.g.) clauses in their constitutions saying they won't. Of course, the legislature usually has the power to amend the constitution.

I'm moderately sure that the UK government has that power; we have no equivalent of the contract clause here. People still make contracts with the UK government.

Yes. One of the fundamental principles of British democracy is that no parliament may bind its successors; any law they make can be overturned by a future parliament. Generally the main consequence of this is that companies aren't willing to sign contracts that are likely to be overturned by their successors; as a general principle the government will pay for work already done, but penalty clauses designed to force the next government to keep the scheme going (which I think Labour tried with ID cards) don't fare so well.

This is kind of necessary in a functioning democracy (as opposed to a corpocracy with democratic trappings); if any government can just give sweetheart deals transferring power to corporations that voters can't do anything about by exercising their vote, in what sense are the voters really in charge at all?

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#97

Post by toast0 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #2

Any new or existing municipality can take over those bonds. They do it all the time. And as a fallback the state could take those on and refinance them and pay then off. It's really not difficult, but the author makes it seem to be. As for the millage rate, if Reedy Creek is higher than the state maximum, I'm curious for what valuation Disney appraises its own property, since the millage rate is only part of the stor…

From what I read, if the district is dissolved, the counties would need to assume the bonds. But, currently, the district is taxing the property to pay for the bonds at a rate that's much higher than is allowed for the counties to levy. If the counties assume the bonds, they'd need to increase taxes across the board to pay for them.

If it's really the policy of the Florida government to retaliate against Disney by relieving them of their debt service; how does that dissuade Disney? How do the citizens of the two counties feel? Is it appropriate for governments to retaliate against companies for opposition or support of a law?

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#98

Post by vannevar »

bandyaboot wrote: post #23

I don’t think the elimination of the Reedy Creek district is meant to ever actually occur. The point is twofold. To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. When they get their people denouncing the opposition as “groomers”, they are achieving their objective.

>The point is twofold. To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars.

I think the purpose was a lot more narrow: to position Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican Presidential primaries. Relatively small numbers of Republicans vote in the primaries, and they tend to be the angrier, more extreme wing. Donald Trump was nominated in 2016 despite a majority of Republican primary voters actually voting for other candidates. Once he was nominated, however, most Republicans fell into step and supported him.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#99

Post by mbg721 »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #67
mbg721 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do children have to be taught about relationships in school? They have home and families, even extended ones, for that.

Teaching happens the entire time kids are at school even when just talking to their teachers so a teacher mentioning their family, their kids, their spouse, changing their last name because they got married, changing from Miss to Mrs, wearing a wedding ring are all expressions of human sexuality. Sexuality \Sex`u al"i ty\, n. The quality or state of being distinguished by sex. --Lindley. [1913 Webster] They wrote the…

Teaching happens in every interaction a child has in life.

If the purpose of schools is to undo the instillment of parents' values (or lack of them), we should at least be honest about it. That's the assumption behind most debates of this type.

If the purpose of schools is to teach specialized skills that most parents don't have, then we should cut the crap so that kids can learn them.

If the purpose of schools is to babysit kids so that their parents can be used as human batteries for Nestle and Kroger, then God help us.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#100

Post by kolanos »

I can't help but see the irony that DeSantis is being described as an autocrat for trying to break up what is effectively a autonomous state that Walt Disney created to bypass most laws and oversight.

> Walt Disney knew that his plans for the land would be easier to carry out with more independence. Among his ideas for his Florida project was his proposed EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was to be a futuristic planned city (and which was also known as Progress City). He envisioned a real working city with both commercial and residential areas, but one that also continued to showcase and test new ideas and concepts for urban living. Therefore, the Disney company petitioned the Florida State Legislature for the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which would have almost total autonomy within its borders. Residents of Orange and Osceola counties did not need to pay any taxes unless they were residents of the district. Services like land use regulation and planning, building codes, surface water control, drainage, waste treatment, utilities, roads, bridges, fire protection, emergency medical services, and environmental services were overseen by the district. The only areas where the district had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.

I am hard pressed to think of anything more anti-competitive and anti-trust than Reedy Creek.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Distri...

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