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The legal machinations Disney went through to secure the site for The Florida Project, as it was then called, are unprecedented and will never be repeated. Disn

The legal machinations Disney went through to secure the site for The Florida Project, as it was then called, are unprecedented and will never be repeated. Disney is the government there. The rationale was that Disney knew more about safety and engineering than the cities that surrounded the property. And you know what? They were right. A drive through the area will make it obvious as soon as you hit Disney property (40 sq miles or larger than Manhattan, BTW). It's cleaner and safer with better roads, signs, and landscaping. There are no overhead power lines, for example. Even their parking lots are smarter with sensors that lead you to the nearest empty space. Having said that, I don't think they would ever attempt a nuke plant and I'm glad about that.

munk-a 7y ago
> Having said that, I don't think they would ever attempt a nuke plant and I'm glad about that. I'm... not? If they did it well they could demystify and de-...demonize nuclear power and maybe return some of that "Magic of Science" feeling they were famous for before the 90s. Disney was a real innovator back in the day, I'd be quite happy to see them take on nuclear power and do it well - maybe with a Gen4 reactor like thorium MSR.
- mimixco 7y ago
  I'm not sure tritium-laced drinking fountains would go over well with Disney's safety team, nor their guests.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    There might be possibilities between "no nuclear power plant" and "tritium-laced drinking fountains".
    - mimixco 7y ago
      That would be great! Let's get that tech for Turkey Point.
      - acct1771 7y ago
        Can you elaborate? Also, credit where credit is due: "Turkey Point has been a contributing force to the reclassification of the American crocodile from endangered to the less serious category of vulnerable." - Wiki
        mimixco 7y ago
        Yes. It leaks radioactive tritium, like the vast majority of nuclear plants.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  A nuclear plant is many billions, it's a bridge too far. Moreover, the potential negative PR could be problematic for them. Finally, Disney is not what it used to be, it's now mostly an entertainment company. They have 0 understanding of these things, it's way beyond their capacity. It's a regular public company without founder/visionary and I can't ever see a board approving this. Google - this would be a company for which it would be outlandish but still within reach, i.e. they have (had?) 'moonshots' - those heady founder-backed 'change the world' projects which are part of how companies winning the current 'visionary narrative' get to spend their money. That's all gone; fortunately Bezos can spend, and it's SpaceX's business to do that, not a side-show, so they'll be around. And the Virgin billionaire as well. Edit: I should add - Disney is firmly an entertainment business, they are effectively a Hollywood Studio, mostly like any other. For anyone with any exposure to this business, it seems abundantly clear how out of bounds this would be; and this is good because these are maybe the last people we want building nuclear power plants.
joezydeco 7y ago
Reedy Creek is not a sovereign nation, building a reactor would still need to clear the federal NRC. It’s a great concept to demonstrate how much leeway WDC got from the state of Florida, but not much else.
blotter_paper 7y ago
And those legal machinations were arranged by a lawyer who used to be a CIA recruiter. I'll add this video of Walt Disney's original plan for the land, in which Disney World is overshadowed by the (u/dys)topian city he called EPCOT (later mangled into the showroom we know today by his brother and investors who were scared of costs and didn't see reliable earning potential in running a city) with a timestamp to when the fun starts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCHg9mUBag&t=06m21s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCHg9mUBag&t=06m21s This is the stuff that inspired BioShock and similar settings (I believe I read an interview years ago where one of the designers mentioned it as an influence, but I wouldn't know where to find a link).
- acct1771 7y ago
  Source on lawyer, etc? Thanks very much in advance!
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    I couldn't find my original source for this, but in finding another one[0] (that wasn't crazy -- searching for Disney and the CIA bring up a lot of crazies) I actually found an interesting take on why EPCOT wasn't legally viable as a city while maintaining the control of the land that Disney (the company and the man) wanted: >Indeed, Walt's comments on a May 23, 1966, memo suggest that he himself had privately backed away from the model city vision before he died. In the memo, which was found in Walt's desk and is now kept at the Disney Archives in Burbank, Calif., Florida attorney Paul Helliwell sketched out the problem of allowing permanent residents at Epcot. If people lived there, they would vote there, diluting the company's political control of the property. It seems that Walt's thoughts were headed in a similar direction: On the memo, every time Helliwell referred to "permanent residents," Walt crossed it out and substituted "temporary residents/tourists." [...] >In that memo, Helliwell expressed concern about state and local laws that might limit the company's "freedom of action" in developing its 43-square-mile property. He proposed a Disney-controlled government with regulatory powers "superseding to the fullest extent possible under law state and county regulatory authorities." There was just one hitch: Under Florida law, as Helliwell explained, planning and zoning authority could only be exercised by a popularly elected government. To escape external land-use controls, the company had to submit to control by voters. Disney attorneys, however, found a clever way to avoid this fate. [...] >To acquire such powers, the company had to convince the Florida legislature that Epcot would be a bona fide community. Paul Helliwell, acting as lobbyist, frequently used the term "resident" in describing the company's plans. Disney lobbyists also told lawmakers that Disney would include "public school sites and other public needs in their two cities," according to an April 22, 1967, article in the Orlando Sentinel-Star. And Helliwell told legislators, few of whom had read the thick Reedy Creek charter, that the company was not asking for anything "that had not been done before." At best the statement was half-true: The charter combined the powers available in three kinds of special districts. But Florida had not combined those powers in one district before. The CIA is actually hosting a formerly secret letter by Helliwell here[1] (you can find a full PDF on the linked page), but that's technically concerning the CIA predecessor the OSS. For a strictly CIA connection, we have to go pack to another Washington Post piece[2]: >Castle Bank was set up and principally controlled by the late Paul Lionel Edward Helliwell, a Miami lawyer. Helliwell, who had longstanding ties to the U.S. intelligence community, was instrumental in helping to direct a network of CIA undercover operations and "proprietaries." (A proprietary is a concern secretly set up and controlled by the CIA, ostensibly as legitimate business.) I haven't found a good source establishing Helliwell as a CIA recruiter -- my memory is that he was, but my memory is made of water and I haven't found bits and bytes backing it up yet, so who knows. It's late here, and I've gotta get some sleep. Hope that helps! [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1994/05/15/when-disney-comes-to-town/5e2f1f9e-62dc-49f9-8aa0-25b63d641a6d/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d9da77e0a353 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/19... [1]: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0005657712 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0005657712 [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/24/cia-helped-quash-major-star-studded-tax-evasion-case/a55ddf06-2a3f-4e04-a687-a3dd87c32b82/?utm_term=.1a8722f355df https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/24/c...
KorematsuFred 7y ago
Disney is more likely to run a nuclear powerplant better than any government agency as long as there are no backroom deals with states/local governments that Disney keeps the profit but taxpayers pay for the liability. A lot of American companies there were trying to setup nuke powerplants in India always haggled on that point. They keep the profit where as government of India pays for the liability insurance.

munk-a 7y ago

> Having said that, I don't think they would ever attempt a nuke plant and I'm glad about that. I'm... not? If they did it well they could demystify and de-...demonize nuclear power and maybe return some of that "Magic of Science" feeling they were famous for before the 90s. Disney was a real innovator back in the day, I'd be quite happy to see them take on nuclear power and do it well - maybe with a Gen4 reactor like thorium MSR.

mimixco 7y ago
I'm not sure tritium-laced drinking fountains would go over well with Disney's safety team, nor their guests.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  There might be possibilities between "no nuclear power plant" and "tritium-laced drinking fountains".
  - mimixco 7y ago
    That would be great! Let's get that tech for Turkey Point.
    - acct1771 7y ago
      Can you elaborate? Also, credit where credit is due: "Turkey Point has been a contributing force to the reclassification of the American crocodile from endangered to the less serious category of vulnerable." - Wiki
      - mimixco 7y ago
        Yes. It leaks radioactive tritium, like the vast majority of nuclear plants.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
A nuclear plant is many billions, it's a bridge too far. Moreover, the potential negative PR could be problematic for them. Finally, Disney is not what it used to be, it's now mostly an entertainment company. They have 0 understanding of these things, it's way beyond their capacity. It's a regular public company without founder/visionary and I can't ever see a board approving this. Google - this would be a company for which it would be outlandish but still within reach, i.e. they have (had?) 'moonshots' - those heady founder-backed 'change the world' projects which are part of how companies winning the current 'visionary narrative' get to spend their money. That's all gone; fortunately Bezos can spend, and it's SpaceX's business to do that, not a side-show, so they'll be around. And the Virgin billionaire as well. Edit: I should add - Disney is firmly an entertainment business, they are effectively a Hollywood Studio, mostly like any other. For anyone with any exposure to this business, it seems abundantly clear how out of bounds this would be; and this is good because these are maybe the last people we want building nuclear power plants.

joezydeco 7y ago

Reedy Creek is not a sovereign nation, building a reactor would still need to clear the federal NRC. It’s a great concept to demonstrate how much leeway WDC got from the state of Florida, but not much else.

blotter_paper 7y ago

And those legal machinations were arranged by a lawyer who used to be a CIA recruiter. I'll add this video of Walt Disney's original plan for the land, in which Disney World is overshadowed by the (u/dys)topian city he called EPCOT (later mangled into the showroom we know today by his brother and investors who were scared of costs and didn't see reliable earning potential in running a city) with a timestamp to when the fun starts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCHg9mUBag&t=06m21s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCHg9mUBag&t=06m21s This is the stuff that inspired BioShock and similar settings (I believe I read an interview years ago where one of the designers mentioned it as an influence, but I wouldn't know where to find a link).

acct1771 7y ago
Source on lawyer, etc? Thanks very much in advance!
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  I couldn't find my original source for this, but in finding another one[0] (that wasn't crazy -- searching for Disney and the CIA bring up a lot of crazies) I actually found an interesting take on why EPCOT wasn't legally viable as a city while maintaining the control of the land that Disney (the company and the man) wanted: >Indeed, Walt's comments on a May 23, 1966, memo suggest that he himself had privately backed away from the model city vision before he died. In the memo, which was found in Walt's desk and is now kept at the Disney Archives in Burbank, Calif., Florida attorney Paul Helliwell sketched out the problem of allowing permanent residents at Epcot. If people lived there, they would vote there, diluting the company's political control of the property. It seems that Walt's thoughts were headed in a similar direction: On the memo, every time Helliwell referred to "permanent residents," Walt crossed it out and substituted "temporary residents/tourists." [...] >In that memo, Helliwell expressed concern about state and local laws that might limit the company's "freedom of action" in developing its 43-square-mile property. He proposed a Disney-controlled government with regulatory powers "superseding to the fullest extent possible under law state and county regulatory authorities." There was just one hitch: Under Florida law, as Helliwell explained, planning and zoning authority could only be exercised by a popularly elected government. To escape external land-use controls, the company had to submit to control by voters. Disney attorneys, however, found a clever way to avoid this fate. [...] >To acquire such powers, the company had to convince the Florida legislature that Epcot would be a bona fide community. Paul Helliwell, acting as lobbyist, frequently used the term "resident" in describing the company's plans. Disney lobbyists also told lawmakers that Disney would include "public school sites and other public needs in their two cities," according to an April 22, 1967, article in the Orlando Sentinel-Star. And Helliwell told legislators, few of whom had read the thick Reedy Creek charter, that the company was not asking for anything "that had not been done before." At best the statement was half-true: The charter combined the powers available in three kinds of special districts. But Florida had not combined those powers in one district before. The CIA is actually hosting a formerly secret letter by Helliwell here[1] (you can find a full PDF on the linked page), but that's technically concerning the CIA predecessor the OSS. For a strictly CIA connection, we have to go pack to another Washington Post piece[2]: >Castle Bank was set up and principally controlled by the late Paul Lionel Edward Helliwell, a Miami lawyer. Helliwell, who had longstanding ties to the U.S. intelligence community, was instrumental in helping to direct a network of CIA undercover operations and "proprietaries." (A proprietary is a concern secretly set up and controlled by the CIA, ostensibly as legitimate business.) I haven't found a good source establishing Helliwell as a CIA recruiter -- my memory is that he was, but my memory is made of water and I haven't found bits and bytes backing it up yet, so who knows. It's late here, and I've gotta get some sleep. Hope that helps! [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1994/05/15/when-disney-comes-to-town/5e2f1f9e-62dc-49f9-8aa0-25b63d641a6d/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d9da77e0a353 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/19... [1]: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0005657712 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0005657712 [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/24/cia-helped-quash-major-star-studded-tax-evasion-case/a55ddf06-2a3f-4e04-a687-a3dd87c32b82/?utm_term=.1a8722f355df https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/24/c...

KorematsuFred 7y ago

Disney is more likely to run a nuclear powerplant better than any government agency as long as there are no backroom deals with states/local governments that Disney keeps the profit but taxpayers pay for the liability. A lot of American companies there were trying to setup nuke powerplants in India always haggled on that point. They keep the profit where as government of India pays for the liability insurance.