It’s sad because it affects the workers directly...That measure was apparently hard fought to even get on the ballot from everything I’ve been reading...
The city is getting flack from the unions but they brought all this on themselves...
For those of you new to this mess...
The city pushed back on the already approved Gateway Project once they realized they’d be out tax money from the closed hotels...Basically reneged on their deal with Disney after they already allowed Disney to start working on the project...Then they thought they could sucker Disney into building another hotel, which in essence would recoup the money the city had lost plus bonus revenue from new shops and restaurants etc..., from the hotel closures related to the original project...
Disney agreed to build the new hotel with the understanding that they’d get a further tax incentive (To help Disney offset Measure L, which would see higher wages for hotel workers in the city...I’ll get more to this later on)...All this was golden for about a minute...Workers were going to be getting paid more, city was getting its take, and Disney was getting its tax cuts to offset the new employee wages long term...
Thing is Disney realized they were still at square one regarding the parking expansion that was tossed after the Gateway project cancellation...Their solution was to build and expand the parking in the area the Pinocchio lot was ( Originally this was to be the location of the new hotel)...Disney then shifted the location of the hotel to the south where they would have to close a portion of Downtown as we all know...All sounds good right? Nope...
Once the city realized they’d be loosing out on tax money again, this time at the expense of closed shops and restaurants in arguably the busiest shopping location in the city, they tried to nix Disney’s plans a second time...So once again the city was canceling a project that they’d already approved and Disney had actively started working on, simply because they felt they weren’t getting their share...
Disney, who clearly were fed up with the situation at this point, informed the city that they were putting the hotel project on hold ( Canceled as of today) to review the financial viability of the whole thing...They also informed the city that they’d also stop accepting all tax incentives that had previously been offered to them...
So now finally getting back to measure L...The major driving force to getting it on the ballot was that, if passed, company’s would receive a tax break to offset the higher employee wages...This was basically for Disney since it would absolutely be the largest hotel industry employer in the city...The caveat to that was that if en employer wanted to be exempt from paying the higher wages outlined in Measure L, they could pass on the tax break and not be required to pay said wages...It was basically saying if you agree to help out your employees with a higher living wage, then the city will give you some cash back on your taxes...
So now Disney, who was clearly tired of being toyed with by the city, officially said no new hotel, no parking, no higher employee wages, and keep ALL of your tax incentives...
So as a result of the city council who were clearly seeing dollar signs, Disney employees won’t be getting their hard fought pay raises, and we the customers will likely be looking at higher park entrance / merchandise / and food costs in the very near future...All because the city couldn’t let a couple Harbour Blvd. hotels go to make way for a parking garage...
