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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

#171

Post by mikeryan »

leereeves wrote: post #163
fnordpiglet wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The local community can’t afford to assume the districts responsibility even if the bond debt is assumed by the state.

Wouldn't the local community collect a lot more taxes if the district didn't exist? As I understand it (admittedly not very well), right now Disney is effectively "paying taxes" to itself.

That's actually covered in the article. "Mills" is the term of art for the amount levied in property taxes. Reedy Creek has the ability to tax at 30mills and currently taxes at 13.67 (1/3 of which goes to paying the debt) the counties are limited to only taxing at a rate up to 10 mills (and are currently at about ~7 mills (Osceola) and ~5 (Orange) so there's a 3.67 shortfall they can't make up and another 3-5 which they currently don't.

The added revenue to the counties would be far short of the amount they'd need to provide the current services and service the debt.

Osceola Millage Rates https://www.property-appraiser.org/final-millage-rates/

Orange Millage Rates https://ocpaweb.ocpafl.org/faqcontent/Taxroll_Info#A404411

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

#172

Post by bandyaboot »

hunterb123 wrote: post #166
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.

Quoted post unavailable.

Disney is not giving sex talks to kids without parents permission. They are being called groomers.

> I don't really care what Disney is being called. I care about teachers engaging in sexual discussion w/ minors without permission. If you do that, or you support this policy, I'll call you a groomer and I'll report you.

Ok, so not giving sex talks to kids without parents’ permission is not, in fact, a simple way to avoid being called a groomer. Got it.

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

#173

Post by gi_jones »

rayiner wrote: post #130
roseway4 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to oppose a Florida bill the majority of people in Florida support. Please provide a source for this claim.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FN_ArK9VEAEnDva?format=jpg&name=... The question is: "To what extent do you support or oppose the following items in the bill? Banning the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade?" Respondents supported it 50-34.

I think it would have been more enlightening if they'd separated out the question, to see how many people would be okay with sexual orientation being taught, but not gender identity. Or vice versa.

They're two very different, and somewhat conflicting, concepts. For example, is homosexuality an attraction between people of the same sex, or the same gender identity? This is a contentious issue even amongst adults, never mind teaching it to children.

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

#174

Post by mikeryan »

leereeves wrote: post #161
gamblor956 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is: the state of Florida can pay off the debt. All at once. That is the only legal way to do it without endangering all of Florida's other debt (bonds, etc.).

Each time I learn more about it, this arrangement seems crazier. It was strange enough that private companies are allowed to run their own local governments in Florida. Now it turns out they're also allowed to issue tax advantaged municipal debt, and transfer that debt to taxpayers if this sweet deal ever ends. It's true that Reedy Creek is being singled out because Disney has fallen out of favor, but I'm still hopin…

Disney built a world class destination in the middle of, what is basically, a swamp. They built all the necessary infrastructure and paid for it by taxing themselves. In a lot of ways it put Orlando on the map and provided a huge boost to the surrounding economy.

I'm not sure who was getting screwed there? It honestly seems like it was a win/win situation.

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

#175

Post by leereeves »

mikeryan wrote: post #171
leereeves wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the local community collect a lot more taxes if the district didn't exist? As I understand it (admittedly not very well), right now Disney is effectively "paying taxes" to itself.

That's actually covered in the article. "Mills" is the term of art for the amount levied in property taxes. Reedy Creek has the ability to tax at 30mills and currently taxes at 13.67 (1/3 of which goes to paying the debt) the counties are limited to only taxing at a rate up to 10 mills (and are currently at about ~7 mills (Osceola) and ~5 (Orange) so there's a 3.67 shortfall they can't make up and another 3-5 which t…

> currently taxes at 13.67 (1/3 of which goes to paying the debt)

So they'd need about 9 mills (2/3rds of 13.67) to pay expenses without the debt? It's likely that they could make up the shortfall by reducing some services. Any services that the local community didn't want to pay for and the Disney company still wanted, Disney could pay for itself.

I also wonder if the the district is fairly valuing the land. How much would a hotel be willing to pay for an acre near the park, and is that the valuation the district uses?

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

#176

Post by adfm »

ladyattis wrote: post #162
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.

>To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And as a consequence it means less business will ever come to Florida which is a disaster for them. It also means any existing businesses in Florida are likely to move more of their new work outside of the state. It's really a bad decision on DeSantis' part and I don't think he cares obviously but his party does.

It’s been said that reality has a well-known liberal bias[^0]. The palpable fear and petulance on display in Florida seems to reinforce that statement. Stunts like this underscore the fact that the US consistently fails with people like DeSantis in office because their gut gets in the way of what is right [^1]. And we all know the problem with politics is the left admitting it’s not always right.

[^0]: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4698442/user-clip-reality-lib...

[^1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_un...

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

#177

Post by mbg721 »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #168
rayiner wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read the actual text of the law. It's directed to "instruction" on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity." It's meant to prevent an off-hand mention of someone's same-sex spouse from turning into a discussion of sexual attraction and sexual orientation.

All activities in the classroom typically fall under the category of instruction not just the formal segments. This law is one of those laws meant to be used against the wrong people while ignoring when the correct people do the same sort of things.

Teachers by definition act in loco parentis; if parents disagree with other adults about values, that's a separate issue, but teachers shouldn't be overriding kids' parents on ideology.

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

#178

Post by leereeves »

mikeryan wrote: post #174
leereeves wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each time I learn more about it, this arrangement seems crazier. It was strange enough that private companies are allowed to run their own local governments in Florida. Now it turns out they're also allowed to issue tax advantaged municipal debt, and transfer that debt to taxpayers if this sweet deal ever ends. It's true that Reedy Creek is being singled out because Disney has fallen out of favor, but I'm still hopin…

Disney built a world class destination in the middle of, what is basically, a swamp. They built all the necessary infrastructure and paid for it by taxing themselves. In a lot of ways it put Orlando on the map and provided a huge boost to the surrounding economy. I'm not sure who was getting screwed there? It honestly seems like it was a win/win situation.

> I'm not sure who was getting screwed there?

Here's one: normally corporate bond payments are federally taxable, but municipal bonds aren't. Everyone in the country is missing out on taxes on payments on that 2 billion dollar debt.

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

#179

Post by dtx1 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #146
twofornone wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. It's slimy and dishonest to pretend that only republicans are fighting a culture war when the bulk of the progressive platform is explicitly about changing US culture. It's like calling Ukraine the aggressor for defending against the Russian invasion.

The issue is not whether Republicans are the only ones fighting a culture war. It's about whether the Republicans are only fighting a culture war. What are their policies on healthcare? Infrastructure investment and repair? Climate change? Transportation policy? Childhood poverty? Topsoil depletion in the midwest? Extreme severe drought in the southwest? etc. etc. Why do they appear to spend so much time talking abou…

> It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is.

Amount of brown people in their voters neighborhood

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

#180

Post by SauciestGNU »

leereeves wrote: post #161
gamblor956 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is: the state of Florida can pay off the debt. All at once. That is the only legal way to do it without endangering all of Florida's other debt (bonds, etc.).

Each time I learn more about it, this arrangement seems crazier. It was strange enough that private companies are allowed to run their own local governments in Florida. Now it turns out they're also allowed to issue tax advantaged municipal debt, and transfer that debt to taxpayers if this sweet deal ever ends. It's true that Reedy Creek is being singled out because Disney has fallen out of favor, but I'm still hopin…

You and I talked about this the other day, and I walked away from this article further convinced that improvement districts are an abomination to the concept of democracy and must be ended. To these ends I think it would be smart for some politician to say "I don't think this bill goes far enough" and propose legislation to dissolve every improvement district.
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