The bill gives him more control of Disney’s special district
The Board of Disney World: Amen. Ricky DeSantis, R.P. Garcia, and Mike Ziegler Revisited
DeSantis has shrugged off such criticism. The Monday’s bill signing event turned into a lengthy take on Disney that extended beyond the legislative activity of Florida. DeSantis featured speakers who assailed the company’s vaccine and mask policies, its treatment of firefighters and its more recent entertainment offerings.
On Monday, DeSantis changed course and signed a new bill that extended the life of the Reedy Creek Improvement District but gave the governor new powers over its future. The new law ousted the existing board, renamed it the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and allowed DeSantis to appoint all five members – one of whom was Peri.
The corporate kingdom is coming to an end today, according to Ron DeSantis at a Reedy Creek fire station. “There’s a new sheriff in town and accountability will be the order of the day.”
DeSantis announced his appointments to the reconstructed board, including Martin Garcia, a Tampa lawyer and prolific Republican donor whose private investment firm contributed $50,000 to DeSantis’ reelection, and Bridget Ziegler, a Sarasota County School Board member who was a co-founder of the conservative organization Moms for Liberty and the wife of Christian Ziegler, the new chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.
In a statement to CNN, the president of Disney World resort said the company is ready to work within the framework of the new law and will bring joy to millions of guests.
Disney opposed something that was about protecting young kids and making sure they can attend school and not have a teacher tell them they can change their gender. “And I think most parents agree with that. But you know that it was a small annoyance. I think that what we came to realize after that dust settled on that was you clearly had a movement within the corporation itself.”
The company donated during the election. The governor’s staff was able to get an exemption from the law because they worked with Disney.
The heart of the bill is the appointment of a five-person state board to oversee municipal services, such as fire protection and road maintenance, where Disney World operates.
In writing, the new board will end Disney’s long practice of taxing itself to develop on the 25,000 unincorporated acres sandwiched between Osceola and Orange counties. It’ll oversee services like sewage treatment and maintain the local roads, as well as decide how much Disney will pay for those services.
The governor implied that the values of Disney wouldn’t be negatively affected by the five board members who want to see Disney be what they want it to be.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District: Changing the management of Disney World’s Splash Mountain to an end that makes more people “evil”
There are nearly 25,000 acres between Orange and Osceola counties where the zone is located. Once a remote and rural area, the Reedy Creek Improvement District received electricity, water, roads and police thanks to Disney’s investments.
Disney did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment, but the company has previously told media outlets that it wouldn’t fight the government takeover.
The relationship between the two deteriorated at the same time as Disney mandated its employees to show proof of vaccine and discouraged guests from wearing face coverings at its theme parks.
At the same time, Disney was increasingly drawing criticism from conservatives for making changes to its parks and films to increase inclusivity. Disney World closed Splash Mountain, for example, after a petition accusing it of “stereotypical racist tropes” gained 21,000 signatures.
DeSantis immediately turned Chapek’s statement into a fundraising point. A month later, he introduced legislation on revoking Disney’s special tax status.
An appointee to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new oversight board in control of Disney’s special tax district called homosexuality “evil” last year and shared a baseless conspiracy theory that tap water could be making more people gay.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District, the government body that has given Disney powers in Central, has received a new leader after the Republican governor appointed a former pastor as one of five people who will run it.
Homosexuality, the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of the Modern World: A Conversation with Ricki Peri in January 2022 Zoom
There are homosexuals today. There are any number of reasons, you know, that are given. Some would say the increase in estrogen in our societies. You know, there’s estrogen in the water from birth control pills. They can’t get it out,” Peri baselessly said in a January 2022 Zoom discussion, later put on YouTube. The level of testosterone in men in America has fallen by half over the last decade. You know, and so, maybe that’s a part of it.”
The removal of constraint is the biggest part of it, according to him. Our society provided the constraint. Which is the responsibility of a society to make people not do things they shouldn’t? Well, you remove the constraints, and then evil occurs.”
The fall of the Roman Empire was linked to the rise of homosexuality by some Christian activists.
Homosexuality was praised in a positive way. “LGBTQ today is being emphasized everywhere, even on children’s shows. And so ultimately the Romans had become weak.”
Peri’s discussions, which focused on seeing the modern world through a Biblical viewpoint, often touched on social topics. He compared the Holocaust to abortion and said being a mother was the “pinnacle” of being a woman.
“It has boggled my mind that you have not seen a massive backlash from the Black population for what is effectively a genocide. And if you look to the right, you can see that in world history, there have been great killers. 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million Jews,” said Peri, pointing to a chart comparing abortion to genocide.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/03/politics/kfile-ron-desantis-disney-ron-peri-anti-lgbtq/index.html
The Disney/Florida Parental Rights in Education (PAE) Conflict: The Anomalies of Peri, Disney, and Ziegler
The appointment of Peri to the oversight board is a result of the long-standing dispute between Disney and Florida over the Parental Rights in Education Act. The law bars schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms and in older classrooms that do not meet yet-to-be-defined standards.
“When you lose your way, you gotta have people that are going to tell you the truth,” the governor said. “All these board members very much would like to see the type of entertainment that all families can appreciate.”
Is it possible that board members will veto projects that go against a governor? The proposal was debated on the floor. Walt Disney made a change to Splash Mountain. They made it Tiana’s Bayou (Adventure). What if the governor didn’t like it? Would the board be allowed to push a company to change their business model, so that it doesn’t hurt them?
The board may be pushing back against Disney’s increasingly progressive slant, as evidenced by the selection of five of his cultural allies and political donors to serve in the oversight roles.
A mother of three, Ziegler co-founded Moms for Liberty and helped lay the groundwork for the Parental Rights in Education Act, known to its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney’s opposition to the legislation gave rise to a growing feud between the company and the governor.
Her ties to conservative politics are wide reaching. Christian Ziegler was named the new chairman of the Republican Party. She also chairs the Leadership Institute, a firm that recruits and trains potential conservative candidates.
Disney Board Desantis Ziegler Perigarcia Special District: Myths and Realizations of a Florida Marring Band Marching Band
Disney asked a high school marching band to cover its logo in order to perform at Magic Kingdom, an attack that was launched by Ziegler last year.
In an interview with NPR, Ziegler implied that some of Disney’s recent cost-cutting measures were due to its stances, but stopped short of saying whether the board would use its powers to influence Disney’s financial well-being.
“We will keep up with what our oversight is,” he said. The main function of the board was to serve the best interest of the people of Florida.
“As a parent of three children, as a Floridian, as someone who has been a consumer of Disney as long as I can remember, there’s no question it’s disappointing to see the direction they’re taking,” she said.
It’s alienating their base consumers across the country. And that has an impact on the financial aspects of Disney,” she said, specifically pointing to Disney+ subscriber numbers. Variety reports the streaming platform lost 2.4 million subscribers from October to December 2022, but that the drop was “entirely driven” by a drop in the Indian market after Disney lost streaming rights to cricket matches.
The board members’ professional reputations were often overshadowed by the media’s focus on politics.
She said her time as a risk management consultant and her time on the school board made her uniquely qualified to serve.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1160997679/disney-board-desantis-ziegler-peri-garcia-special-district
Disney Board Directors: Pastor Sergio Peri, Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis, Brian Aungst, and Donald A. Sasso
Ron Peri’s résumé includes time as the founder, CEO and chairman of Radixx International, an airline technology company, and as chief technology officer of AirTran Airways, a low-budget local airline that was acquired by Southwest.
Christianity is seen as a worldview that combines American exceptionalism with a belief that all U.S. laws should adhere to Christian values.
A recent survey shows that as many as half of Republicans support the idea, even though some hate watch groups have seen it as anti-democratic.
Peri, too, has weighed in on the Florida education debates. He has praised Moms for Liberty for its work on Parental Rights and criticized critical race theory.
In a recent video sermon, Peri specifically called out Disney for training employees on topics like systemic racism, white privilege and microaggressions.
During the last election season, Michael A. Sasso donated about $9,000 to conservative candidates including Ron DeSantis, who is a Republican. Sasso is president of the Orlando chapter of the Federalist Society and serves on several state commissions thanks to DeSantis appointments.
In the governor’s first term, he placed 250 of his donors into top leadership positions, according to an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times. That number represents a 75% increase over the number of donor appointments by his predecessor, Republican Rick Scott.
During the last election cycle, the final Disney board member, Brian Aungst Jr., donated $2,000 to local candidates, but not to the person who will be the next president.
Aungst, whose father was once the Republican mayor of Clearwater, is a local land-use attorney and former chairman of the regional chamber of commerce. DeSantis appointed Aungst to a judicial nominating commission in 2021.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1160997679/disney-board-desantis-ziegler-peri-garcia-special-district
The Disney Board of Supervisors: A State Reply to the Governor’s Conjecture on Tax Breaking in Disney and Implications for Firefighter Compensation
Disney still has the same tax breaks, but they’re no longer allowed to speak their minds, according to the state representative. “It sends a message to any private individual or company that if you don’t purport to what the Governor wants, then you’ll be punished.”
The Disney board will still need to be officially approved by the Republican-controlled state Senate, but will begin its work this week with a public meeting.
The board’s first priorities will be evaluating the current state of the property and a financial review. The idea of increasing the compensation for the local firefighters was raised last week during the bill signing.
“Even though I would like the local governments to just take this, I was not going to put taxpayers at risk, and I did not trust them The local government needed to be able to handle this at this point according to the local government’s initial plan.
