ORLANDO, Fla. (CN) — The Walt Disney Company shot back late Thursday against the authority claimed by a Florida-backed oversight board to void agreements giving Disney control of the special district where its theme park is located.
Disney is represented in the new filing by lawyers with WilmerHale in Manhattan, O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles and local Orlando attorney Adam Colby Losey. It contends that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District is essentially the same entity as the previous board, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which passed two last-minute development deals that ceded control of most operations in the 25,000-acre district to the theme park.
The district got its new name in February, along with a new board of supervisors handpicked by Governor Ron DeSantis, after Disney announced its opposition to Florida's “Don’t Say Gay” law, as critics call it. Otherwise known as the Parental Rights in Education bill makes it illegal for LGBTQ issues to be discussed in the classroom or taught from kindergarten through third grade.
Disney argues that DeSantis and his appointed oversight board chose to void the development agreements not for any “reasonable state interest,” but to “further an official State campaign of retaliation against Disney for expressing a viewpoint that Governor DeSantis and his legislative allies disagree with.”
“The district’s retaliatory interference with the Contracts, via the legislative declaration and its predicates, has chilled and continues to chill Disney’s protected speech,” the document states.
Meanwhile, as Disney notes, the contract clause of the Florida Constitution prohibits government entities from impairing their own contractual obligations toward private entities.
“In one important respect, things remained unchanged: The bill left [the Reedy Creek Improvement District] financial and contractual obligations intact,” the company's countersuit states. “Specifically, all preexisting contracts, debts, bonds and other liabilities shall continue to be valid and binding on the [Central Florida Tourism Oversight District] in accordance with their respective terms, conditions, and covenants.”
Litigation in Orange County Circuit Court has been brewing in the case since May when the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District sued to invalidate the development agreements.
The district moved for summary judgement earlier this week after Judge Margaret Schreiber rejected Disney’s request to dismiss the lawsuit. Represented by the firms Cooper & Kirk, Lawson Huck, and Nardella & Nadella, the district says Disney lacked legal authority to assign development rights within the district, which includes two municipalities.
“The agreements do not merely freeze in place existing land development regulations applicable to Disney's property,” the district argues. “Instead, they substitute Disney for the district as the final authority on all land use decisions for all landowners within the district (including the district itself) for the next 30 years.”
Meanwhile Disney is also suing DeSantis and the board members in the Northern District of Florida. The federal complain alleges a “targeted campaign of government retaliation — orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech.”
DeSantis, who is running for the Republican nomination for president, told CNBC on Monday that he has “basically moved on” from his squabble with Disney.
“So what I would say is — drop the lawsuit,” the governor said he would tell Disney CEO Bob Iger. “Your competitors all do very well here — Universal, SeaWorld. They have not had the same special privileges as you have.”
The feud between Disney and the state has led to a series of headaches for DeSantis and board members. One of the governor’s appointees abruptly resigned in May without giving a reason. And this week, the administrator of the district, Glen Gilzean, learned he must resign from his role as chairman of the state’s ethics commission or as district administrator. Florida law does not allow public employees to serve on the commission, according to a legal opinion from the commission’s lawyer.
DeSantis appointed Gilzean to the ethics commission in 2019. The DeSantis-appointed oversight board hired him to serve as district administrator in May with a salary of $400,000.
The district's office did not return a call requesting comment.
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