And perfectly acceptable if you’re not a moron.

Reedy Creek is just Disney. It’s the Disney roads, the Disney fire department, the Disney sewers, and literally nothing else. Disney pays all the taxes, and up until DeSantis, Disney just told them what was in the best interest of the parks. Reedy Creek doesn’t serve anyone other than Disney, and doesn’t make any decisions that don’t affect Disney.

Of course the board was all Disney people. Who else would want the job? What other priorities would they have? The 18 other owners of undeveloped land that only has value because it’s next to Disney? The 50 some odd permanent residents who mostly work at Disney? The tourists visiting Disney?

The board would determine how much money they needed to keep the traffic lights on, and Disney would give them the money. Disney offered discounts and perks because it helped them attract high-quality administrators and civil servants.

There are many competing theories of government, how big it should be, what they should be responsible for, how they should determine how much to tax, and how those taxes should be spent. The Reedy Creek District was a rare example of ideal governance, because they had one constituent and one source of income, the mouse. No waste, no abuse, no corrpution because it was all out in the open. “We need to fix the road outside of Epcot.” Ok, that will cost exactly this much money. “Ok, here is exactly that amount of money.” It was a Republican wet dream, like if the Hoover Institute produced their own version of The West Wing.

It’s actually amazing that DeSantis managed to fuck it up that spectacularly. It took them a year to produce an 80 page report that tells everyone what we already knew because it wasn’t a secret.