In addition to the free speech, property rights, and equal protection grounds, there is also the simple fact that
repealing RCID without the consent of the voting landowners is prohibited by current state law.
The authority to vote for the RCID Board of Supervisors rests
solely in a hand-selected group of senior Disney employees who are listed as the official landowners of several undeveloped parcels within the district, and they are
not going to vote to dissolve RCID.
Section 189.072(2) of the Florida Statutes restricts how the legislature can dissolve an active independent special district like RCID, requiring the vote of “a majority of the landowners voting in the same manner by which the independent special district’s governing body is elected.” HC 3C begins “Notwithstanding s. 189.072(2),” so the bill drafters are clearly aware of this provision but there’s nothing in the short text of the bill that could overcome the rights of the RCID voting landowners.
That statutory provision was reassuring to Orange County Commissioner
Christine Moore, who initially told me she was “stressed” and “horrified” by HB 3C “because we can’t handle it — we aren’t keeping up with Orlando development now.” Worrying about how to possibly take on RCID was “a distraction to the business we need to be doing,” she added, pointing out Central Florida’s ongoing challenges with transportation and affordable housing.
After speaking with a county attorney, however, she relaxed somewhat, calling me back to say that the attorney was “pretty confident” that Disney could prevail in court based on that statute.
Still, court cases take time, and the short time period — just over one year — after which HB 3C would abolish RCID left very little time to prepare. Disney had “completely different standards” than Orange County, said Moore, and if the county was going to take over RCID’s functions, enter into a new RCID-like arrangement with Disney, or some hybrid of the two, “we’d have to do a study, and that doesn’t happen overnight.”