Disney's CEO Bob Iger says settlement agreement with Oversight District is a 'win-win' for Disney

Apr 03, 2024 in "Reedy Creek Improvement District"

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Team Disney Orlando

Posted: Wednesday April 3, 2024 1:54pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney CEO Bob Iger has made his first public comments on the recently announced settlement agreement between Walt Disney World and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

Announced in late March, the Walt Disney Company and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District proposed a settlement agreement that will potentially see both sides drop their respective lawsuits. Today, Iger described the agreement as a "win-win" for Disney.

The critical points of the agreement from Disney's perspective are that the district commits to reviewing and potentially amending the 2020 Comprehensive Plan, with consultations involving Disney, and that the subsequent negotiations for the new development agreement are linked to Disney pursuing or halting its federal lawsuit against CFTOD and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Responding to a question about investing in the parks, Iger said, "The agreement we reached with the Central Florida tourism oversight district last week will actually enable us to pursue the kinds of significant investment in our Florida parks that you're talking about. We achieved a win-win result with that deal. In terms of our ability to pursue future development opportunities, but also in terms of the 1000s of direct and indirect jobs, and economic opportunity in the state that will come with our investment in new projects. So as we've discussed regarding our $60 billion capital expenditure plans, is much more coming to our parks around the world, including in Florida."

Bob Iger at Walt Disney World

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michmousefan1 day ago

cranbiz2 days ago

Not really a distortion of facts. Yes, RCID was a legally a separate entity from TWDC. In reality, it was controlled by WDW, which is why DeSantis had a hard on for getting revenge on TWDC for "don't say gay" and other woke policies by trying to revoke the district. He couldn't do that for many reasons so he got the law changed to appoint his own governing board. As we know, that really did fail miserably and there is now a board that is not antagonistic towards Disney. There is a charge for those benefits to the third party entities in some way, shape or form. WDW doesn't give anything away for free. RCID (and many third party operating participants) pay for those benefits (usually at a very reduced rate). So, in the case of RCID, Disney paid for those benefits through it's tax assessments because RCID has no income of it's own except for income received from it's taxpayers (of which TWDC is it's largest and majority taxpayer). So, what I said was true. WDW paid for the benefits granted by RCID to it's employees and RCID, by granting those benefits paid WDW back for them. This keeps everything legal. Yes, CFTOD wanted to stick it to Disney by refusing to pay WDW for those benefits, which in turn stuck it to the employees. RCID and CFTOD employees were never WDW Cast Members, they were employees of RCID or are/were employees of CFTOD.

LAKid532 days ago

It takes little time to release a completed report. Unless that report didn't say exactly what you wanted it to say....

LAKid532 days ago

Governor's office receives a FOIA (govt in the Sunshine) request... "What's sunshine?" 🙄

LAKid532 days ago

🤫

LAKid532 days ago

Florida statute says state records are open to the public. It doesn't say how quickly agencies have to provide the info. When I worked for various state agencies, we tried getting the requested info as quickly as possible. If it was a state legislator or governor's office, yesterday wasn't fast enough. 😉

LAKid532 days ago

Bingo

Chi842 days ago

So they had to ferret it out as opposed to the government releasing it to the news agencies. That’s understandable. Those requests can take a surprisingly long time to fulfill.

Stripes2 days ago

WKMG submitted a public records request. That request was just recently fulfilled and the document released. WKMG hasn’t said when they submitted the request.

Unbanshee2 days ago

Lol, you must be new here. The state doesn't like to "live in the sunshine" when it comes to matters that the esteemed governor finds personally difficult

Chi842 days ago

The memo is dated June 21. Reporting on it the day after Christmas seems to be the definition of “old news.” Although it could be that Florida dragged its feet releasing it for some reason.

TiggerDad2 days ago

When you want to bury a story, you release it at Christmas when no one is paying attention to the news.

mikejs782 days ago

That's a distortion of the facts. RCID was a separate entity that gave its employees similar benefits that other third party vendors within WDW gave, which included park tickets. Disney offered this same benefit to any company that operated within the district (e.g. Disney Springs tenants, etc.). Disney wasn't "paying itself" back. CFTOD wanted to "stick it to Disney" so they made an issue out of it.