Woods: The state of Florida has plenty of serious problems. Disney isn’t one of them.

This is the start of National Park Week. And as I’ve said many times, my idea of the happiest place on earth isn't a theme park, it's a national park.

I don’t like lines, crowds, rides, “It’s a Small World,” and faux springs in a state full of natural ones. Other than that …

But I know there are lot of people (including two in my household) who love going to Disney World. So while I plan to write something about our national parks later this week, it’s worth first diving into what’s playing out with Florida’s most famous park.

We’ve reached the point where the governor of Florida is suggesting that land near Disney World might be a nice spot for a competing theme park. Or maybe a state park. Or maybe even a state prison.

“The possibilities are endless,” Ron DeSantis said during a recent press conference.

Indeed. Imagine the potential. A fast pass to the state pen! Pirates of the Caribbean meets Prisoners of the Kissimmee!

Maybe the state prison was just a flippant suggestion, but other elements of the press conference clearly were not — like saying a bill will end exemptions for ride-safety inspection rules. Not for Universal, SeaWorld or Busch Gardens. Just for Disney.

It was the latest in DeSantis versus Disney,

It’s hard to even imagine what would be an equivalent in any other state.

Vermont’s governor versus maple syrup?

Wisconsin’s governor battling the state’s largest cheesemaker?

Michigan’s governor promising to take General Motors down a notch?

Mouse-eared face of the state

There really isn’t an equivalent to Disney in Florida. Not Walmart in Arkansas, Exxon in Texas, Nike in Oregon. Because Disney isn’t just one of Florida’s largest employers, it is in many ways the mouse-eared face of the state.

It’s a brand known worldwide, a tourist attraction so linked to a place — even more to here than to its birthplace of California — that it’s hard to imagine one without the other, like Paris and the Eiffel Tower.

And yet it wasn’t all that long ago that there wasn’t a replica Eiffel Tower, one-tenth the size of the original, in the middle of Florida.

Epcot Center opened in 1982, a little more than a decade after the grand opening of Disney World in 1971.

Just a couple of years ago, when Disney World celebrated its 50th anniversary, the patch of Central Florida where Roy Disney broke ground after his brother Walt’s death was being hailed as a transformational piece of the state. For better and worse, it led a population explosion and helped grow Florida’s economy to the 15th largest in the world, bigger than that of many countries.

From the beginning, some questioned Reedy Creek, the district created by lawmakers for Disney, allowing it to basically be its own kingdom, with its own police, fire departments, taxing power and building code.

But others have defended it. And not just all the politicians who have received donations. As it turned 50, Charles Lee of the Florida Audubon Society told the Tallahassee Democrat that the 27,000 acres in Roy Disney’s creation looked like a model for good growth management and land use.

“If you … insisted that other people do as good a job as Disney did inside his boundaries, a lot of mess you are seeing in Orange and Osceola counties would not have happened,” he said.

It’s worth noting who wasn’t questioning Disney’s district until recently: Ron DeSantis.

From wedding site to culture war front

In 2009, before he first ran for public office, DeSantis got married at Disney World, exchanging vows with former Jacksonville TV journalist Casey Black in the wedding chapel of the Grand Floridian Resort.

That, he has said recently, was her idea. But in his first couple of years as governor, DeSantis showed few signs of having qualms with anything Disney. To the contrary, he gladly took political donations from Disney and, among other things, supported an absurd exemption for the theme parks in a social media bill.

It wasn’t until last March that things changed faster than you can’t say gay. After the passage of the Parental Rights in Education bill, which supporters note doesn’t actually say “Don’t Say Gay,” Disney said … almost nothing.

Disney, which had a history of supporting gay rights, initially remained silent, drawing criticism from those who opposed the bill, including some Disney employees. Eventually, though, Disney did come out publicly against the bill — and drew the ongoing wrath of the governor.

The governor didn’t just criticize Disney, using the word “woke” as often as possible. He decided he was going to punish this private business for its public comment. He was going to undo Disney’s special district and more.

It hasn’t been as simple as he planned. But he seems prepared to more than double-down — to $795-an-hour down. That’s the cost of some of the lawyers who have been hired to wage an already costly legal fight with Disney.

The state of Florida has a lot of serious issues. Disney World isn’t one of them.

But this clearly isn’t about running the state of Florida. Like so much that has happened in the past year, it’s about running for president of the United States.

DeSantis has spent the last few months traveling the country, telling people in other states how much he admires them — he seems to particularly admire the people in critical presidential states — and saying that until he became governor and did things like stand up to Disney, people in Florida weren’t proud of their own state.

When he went to New Hampshire recently, he told people there: “I was born and raised in Florida, and it’s only been recently that we’ve developed a sense of state pride ourselves.”

That one made it back to Florida before DeSantis did, prompting some in the state to have a somewhat different take. (And, yes, Donald Trump has been among those criticizing the governor, writing on Truth Social, “This is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!”)

With all that happened in South Florida recently — the flooding of Fort Lauderdale, followed by long lines at gas stations — that might seem like a natural spot for the governor to head during a break in his national book tour. But instead he went to Disney, or close to Disney, to threaten Disney.

To be clear, the governor isn’t simply talking about making changes to level a playing field. He seems intent on tilting the field against Disney.

Take the ride-inspection exemption. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is responsible for inspecting amusement rides in Florida, but an exception was carved out for the state's largest theme park operators. While those theme parks have long argued that they have their own stringent inspections, ride-safety advocates long have called for a change.

And so it’s tempting to applaud the governor announcing plans to do that, to remove that exemption, to require more transparency. Except that apparently it will only be for parks in special districts.

In other words, only for Disney.

That prompted Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell, who has written about the need for more oversight and transparency for theme parks, to ask people to finish this sentence: “I believe Disney should be subjected to serious ride-safety regulations — but Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens should not — because …”

Because they didn’t criticize a bill? Because while Disney temporarily paused political donations last year, Universal recently gave Florida Republicans about $400,000 worth of free park passes, food and hotel stays?

Talk about the Free State of Florida.

DeSantis specifically mentioned ensuring higher safety standards for Disney's monorail. If you’re putting together a list of safety concerns for Floridians, I’m not sure where the monorail ranks. But I’m pretty sure it’s behind accidents on roads, gun violence, condo collapses, hurricanes, flooding, lightning, red tide, disease and, this week, the fatigue in Florida encapsulated and exacerbated by an emergency alert that woke — yes, in this case literally woke — people all over the state at 4:45 a.m.

mwoods@jacksonville.com

(904) 359-4212

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: DeSantis versus Disney in Florida is a battle unlike any other