DeSantis Threatened to Build a New State Prison Next to Disney But Last Summer He Vetoed Funding for One
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made headlines Monday when he threatened to build a state prison next to Walt Disney World in retaliation for the company’s refusal to submit to the will of his handpicked special taxing district board, but he vetoed funding for construction of a new state prison just last summer.
“Come to think of it now, people are like, well, there’s, what should we do with this land?” said DeSantis during a Monday press conference regarding property adjacent to Disney’s 25,000-acre Central Florida parcel. “People have said, you know, maybe, maybe have another — maybe create a state park. Maybe try to do more amusement parks.”
“Uh, someone even said, like, maybe you need another state prison,” DeSantis continued with a chuckle. “Who knows? I mean, I just think that the possibilities are, are, are endless.”
The Florida governor “may have been joking, but the thrust of his arguments and animus toward the theme park is quite serious, and at least one Cabinet member is willing to back his play,” wrote Florida Politics reporter A.G. Gancarski on Tuesday, noting that CFO Jimmy Patronis had voiced his support for building a prison next to Disney in an appearance on Fox & Friends earlier that day.
DeSantis has been battling Mickey Mouse for about a year, ever since the prior Disney CEO Bob Chapek issued a press release criticizing the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed. The GOP-controlled Florida legislature rushed ahead with an ill-conceived bill that would have repealed outright the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district for Disney’s property that stretches across Orange and Osceola County, and then backed down from that plan after RCID’s billion-dollar-plus bond debt posed too tricky of a political problem.
A new bill reversed course and purported to revoke Disney’s landowner authority to appoint the RCID board and instead granted that power to the governor. But before the new DeSantis-appointed board could seize the reins, Disney and the existing RCID board entered into a new development agreement, essentially freezing the existing system in place, prohibiting the incoming board from using the Disney name or characters, and otherwise sharply limiting their power.
DeSantis’ stymied Cinderella Castle coup has led to lots of online mockery, critical media coverage, and swipes from his potential rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, but there’s also a disingenuous element to his threat to build a prison next to Disney, since he himself vetoed funding for one very recently.
As Florida Politics’ Renzo Downey reported June 2, 2022, DeSantis’ line-item vetoes of the state budget included striking “$645 million to construct a new 4,500-bed correctional institution” and “$195 million for a 250-bed hospital unit to serve the medical needs of the state prison population, particularly elderly inmates.”
The $645 million “could have been used for architectural and engineering professional services, site preparation, construction and construction management,” wrote Downey. “Plus, DOC could have used the funding to purchase land if no state or locally owned land was available.”
DeSantis has a track record of vetoing funding for improvements to the state prison system, as Downey noted, including rejecting a $2 million budget line in 2020 that would have gone to “develop a master plan to modernize the state’s correctional infrastructure.”
