“But now that Disney has reopened this issue, we’re not just going to void the development agreement they tried to do, we’re going to look at things like taxes on the hotels, we’re going to look at things like tolls on the roads,” he said.
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The Legislature passed a bill in February that stripped the company of control of the special Reedy Creek district after more than 50 years and allowed DeSantis to appoint its board. But in the last meeting of the outgoing board on Feb. 8, its members quietly approved a 30-year development agreement and restrictive covenants with Disney designed to be in place for decades.
The deals were publicly issued in legal notices, and DeSantis’ handpicked board members conceded they essentially left them powerless to manage future development.
Raising hotel taxes or putting tolls on roads will hurt consumers, not Disney, said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando.
“It’s hitting a point of absurdity,” she said. “It is not creating an even playing field. It’s about DeSantis looking big and bad next to Disney.”
If DeSantis wants accountability, he should urge the Legislature to pass combined reporting for corporate income taxes that would prevent corporations from using tax-avoiding accounting tricks, Eskamani said.
Disney could challenge DeSantis and the Legislature in court if they move to void the development agreement on the grounds that they are invalidating an existing contract, said Jacob Schumer, a Central Florida attorney who specializes in local government law. If lawmakers single out Disney, the corporation could also argue that the action violates the equal-protection clause, he said.
“If the Legislature is targeting an existing contract and specifically impairs the contract, that is a constitutional problem,” Schumer said. “Going back and voiding a contract would be very difficult to defend in court. I would think Disney would have a much stronger case.”
It’s also possible that the state could argue the agreement wasn’t done in accordance with state law. Schumer said he hasn’t found anything in his review that the state could use to get the contract voided.
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