Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's appointed board overseeing Disney's special district is going after the deputies hired to protect park guests, and the irony meter just blew up. During this week's meeting, officials said the previous board spent $8 million yearly on law enforcement overtime on Disney properties. And they're doing this to pay for their court costs with Disney. This seems to be done solely for one man's ego.
WFTV reports:
Now, the board is doing away with that spending and cutting $8 million used to pay law enforcement officers in off-duty shifts, saying the cost of fighting Disney in court has caused it to have to find money in other places.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District manages the land known as Reedy Creek, on which Disney owns all the property. The previous board called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was controlled by Disney itself.
"There was spending on a number of fronts that was wasteful," Martin Garcia, Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board chairman, said, according to The Daily Beast. "Eight million dollars was being used for law enforcement services exclusively on Disney properties, and that doesn't make any sense to me."
Well, keeping visitors safe might help keep money pumped into the state so they can visit Florida's most prominent tourist attraction.
Via Mediaite:
"DeSantis is actually defunding the actual police and making us less safe in order to pursue his petty vendetta against Disney," former Orlando-area state representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat who's now running for state senate, told Mediaite Wednesday evening. "This obsession has already cost Florida taxpayers millions in litigation fees and even more in lost economic development opportunities. When will this craziness end?"
Just tell Puddin' Fingers the mouse lost so he won't burn the state to the ground.
