Disney CEO Bob Iger Comments on Reedy Creek DeSantis Battle
During The Walt Disney Company’s May 10th Q2 earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger had some things to say regarding the ongoing conflict between Disney and the State of Florida.
Photo: Getty Images
To sum it up as succinctly as we can, Disney has currently filed a lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as well as the DeSantis-appointed board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, and Florida has since filed a state lawsuit against Disney, all boiling down to Disney’s disapproving comments about a Florida education bill.
Now, Bob Iger has made his thoughts about this conflict quite clear.
Bob Iger’s Comments
During the Q&A portion of the Q2 earnings call, Iger answered a question regarding the legal situation in Florida.
“Regarding Florida, I got a few things I want to say about that bill,” Iger began. “First of all, if the case that we filed last month, made our position and the facts very clear, and that’s really that this is about one thing and one thing only and that’s retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation.
And we believe that in us taking that position we are merely exercising our right to free speech. Also, this is not about special privileges or a level playing field or Disney in any way using its leverage around the state of Florida.”
Photo: Disney
Iger continued, “But since there’s been a lot said about special districts and the arrangement that we had, I want to set the record straight on that too. There are about 2000 special districts in Florida, and most were established to foster investment in development, where we were one of them. It basically made it easier for us and others by the way to do business in Florida. And we build a business that employs as we’ve said before over 75,000 people and attracts tens of millions of people to the state.”
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
So while it’s easy to say that the Reedy Creek special district that was established for us over 50 years ago benefited us, it’s misleading to not also consider how much Disney benefited the state of Florida,” said Iger. ” And we’re also not the only company operating a special district.
If the goal is leveling the playing field and the uniform application of the law of government oversight of special districts needs to occur or be applied to all special districts.”
Image: Disney
Iger also spoke about taxes, noting, “There’s also a false narrative that we’ve been fighting to protect tax breaks as part of this. But in fact, we’re the largest taxpayer in Central Florida paying over $1.1 billion in state and local taxes last year alone and we pay more taxes, specifically more real estate taxes as a result of that special district and we all know there was no concerted effort to do anything to dismantle what was once called Reedy Creek special district until we spoke out on the legislation.”
Reedy Creek
Does this all boil down to retaliation? Iger thinks so.
He said, “So this is plainly a matter of retaliation while the rest of the Florida special districts continue operating basically as they were and I think it’s also important for us to say our primary goal has always been to be able to continue to do exactly what we’ve been doing there, which is investing in Florida, [where we are] proud of the tourism industry that we created and we want to continue delivering the best possible experience for guests going forward.
Photo: AP
Iger also repeated Disney’s plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next 10 years, which he noted during the recent shareholder call.
Iger concluded his answer by saying, “We operate responsibly. We pay our fair share of taxes. We employ thousands of people and by the way, we pay them above the minimum wage substantially above the minimum wage dictated by the state of Florida. We also provide them with great benefits and free education. So I’m going to finish what is obviously kind of a long answer by asking one question: Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes? Or not? Thanks.”
Cinderella Castle
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