Last month outgoing board for the district containing Disney World put in place an agreement that essentially transferred all of the board’s power directly to the company just prior to the appointment of a new board by Governor DeSantis. That agreement was intended to be permanent, but as Ed pointed out Monday, Gov. DeSantis let Disney know this week that their attempt to do an end run around his newly appointed board was not going to work. His announcement came just after the new board discovered another last minute agreement made with Disney:

A Disney subsidiary, which provides utility services to the central Florida district that includes the Walt Disney World Resort, negotiated an agreement in February to extend its contract through 2032, Chairman Martin Garcia said at a public meeting. Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Last Friday afternoon I learned for the first time about one of these new 11th hour agreements entered into between Disney and the district. This one relates to our utility services,” Garcia said. “We’ll have to evaluate the legality of that agreement, that essentially enables Disney to set their utility rates.

Today, the new board met and began working to undo the prior board’s agreement handing it’s power to the company.

Among the changes board members made Wednesday were eliminating a planning agency and making the board responsible for future planning. They also said that in the future, they might consider acquiring more land under eminent domain, monetizing the district’s assets to pay off debt, banning COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates, asserting the board’s “superior authority” over the district and exploring new zoning for the construction of affordable housing for Disney workers on Disney World property…

The new supervisors have hired a team of high-powered lawyers that includes a former Florida Supreme Court justice to possibly challenge the agreements between Disney and the old board. At Wednesday’s meeting, the attorneys outlined their arguments for why the deals were illegal, claiming they weren’t properly noticed and were self-dealing. They also said a district can’t confer governmental powers to a private entity.

“Disney engaged in a caper worthy of Scrooge McDuck,” said David Thompson, one of the attorneys.

Politico has a bit more on Thompson’s approach to undermining the agreement.

Thompson and Alan Lawson, former Supreme Court Justice, who was also hired by the board, said the district was in violation of the Florida constitution because it gave authority to a private company, and also did not establish procedures before accepting a new developmental agreement at a Feb. 8 meeting…

The board will meet again on April 26, where staff has been asked to make a resolution voiding the agreements.

There seems to be plenty of evidence this was not handled in a normal way. Fox News is reporting today that Disney’s lawyers actually wrote the agreement with the previous board.

Lawyers for the Walt Disney Company tried to hide their authorship of a rushed development agreement with a local Florida board that heavily favored the company, according to internal emails reviewed by Fox News Digital…

Emails reviewed by Fox News Digital that were also read aloud at a meeting of the new board on Wednesday show that a draft of the agreement that was circulated earlier this year listed Walt Disney World Resort chief counsel John McGowan as the drafter, and that McGowan preferred putting someone else’s name on the draft.

“My name is currently at the top of the document as a drafter,” McGowan wrote. “And I am comfortable having my name on it, but from an optics perspective that is not ideal and it would be better to have a non-Disney employee be the drafter.”

The final draft of the agreement left McGowan’s name out completely.

If the new board does void the agreement next week, I’m guessing that could lead to litigation by Disney who will attempt to tie this up in the courts for months. But Gov. DeSantis is already working on a bill that the Florida legislature can pass to undo this as a matter of law. So it’s hard to see how Disney comes out ahead here by continuing to fight. I guess we’ll see next week.