Ron DeSantis appoints former Jeopardy champion as new board member for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

Jun 01, 2023 in "Reedy Creek Improvement District"

Posted: Thursday June 1, 2023 4:!5pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has today announced the appointment of Charbel Barakat to the board of his hand-picked Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

Charbel Barakat replaces Michael Sasso Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

Charbel Barakat, a former Jeopardy champion, replaces Michael Sasso who resigned last week from his board position after less than four months in the job.

Barakat, of Tampa, is the Regional General Counsel for D.R. Horton, Inc. He currently serves as a Commissioner for the Second District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission and serves on the Florida Development Finance Corporation. Barakat is Vice President of the Federalist Society for the Tampa Bay Chapter and Chairman of the Volume Builders Council for the Florida Home Builders Association. Barakat earned his bachelor’s degree in international studies from Johns Hopkins University and his juris doctor from New York University School of Law.

The appointment is subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.

Barakat will join the board that was appointed by DeSantis to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District at the end of February 2023. Other members of the five-person board are Bridget Ziegler, one of the authors of Florida's controversial Parental Bill of Rights law, Ron Peri, a former senior pastor of Evangel Baptist Church and now CEO of The Gathering, and lawyers Martin Garcia and Brian Aungst.

The entire board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District is being sued by the Walt Disney Company as part of the lawsuit against the district and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

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MR.Dis8 days ago

To give an example, I am retired from JP Morgan Chase, the provider of Disney Visa charge cards. I was eligible to purchase WDW and Disneyland tickets thru a portal for 20% off the rack rate. I do not know if that is still the case. While I was an annual pass holder purchasing thru DVC, I would purchase tickets for my kids when they visited WDW with their families. It was a significant savings.

flyakite8 days ago

Should anyone be interested and would like to attend:

michmousefan21 days ago

cranbiz22 days ago

Not really a distortion of facts. Yes, RCID was a legally a separate entity from TWDC. In reality, it was controlled by WDW, which is why DeSantis had a hard on for getting revenge on TWDC for "don't say gay" and other woke policies by trying to revoke the district. He couldn't do that for many reasons so he got the law changed to appoint his own governing board. As we know, that really did fail miserably and there is now a board that is not antagonistic towards Disney. There is a charge for those benefits to the third party entities in some way, shape or form. WDW doesn't give anything away for free. RCID (and many third party operating participants) pay for those benefits (usually at a very reduced rate). So, in the case of RCID, Disney paid for those benefits through it's tax assessments because RCID has no income of it's own except for income received from it's taxpayers (of which TWDC is it's largest and majority taxpayer). So, what I said was true. WDW paid for the benefits granted by RCID to it's employees and RCID, by granting those benefits paid WDW back for them. This keeps everything legal. Yes, CFTOD wanted to stick it to Disney by refusing to pay WDW for those benefits, which in turn stuck it to the employees. RCID and CFTOD employees were never WDW Cast Members, they were employees of RCID or are/were employees of CFTOD.

LAKid5322 days ago

It takes little time to release a completed report. Unless that report didn't say exactly what you wanted it to say....

LAKid5322 days ago

Governor's office receives a FOIA (govt in the Sunshine) request... "What's sunshine?" 🙄

LAKid5322 days ago

🤫

LAKid5322 days ago

Florida statute says state records are open to the public. It doesn't say how quickly agencies have to provide the info. When I worked for various state agencies, we tried getting the requested info as quickly as possible. If it was a state legislator or governor's office, yesterday wasn't fast enough. 😉

LAKid5322 days ago

Bingo

Chi8422 days ago

So they had to ferret it out as opposed to the government releasing it to the news agencies. That’s understandable. Those requests can take a surprisingly long time to fulfill.

Stripes22 days ago

WKMG submitted a public records request. That request was just recently fulfilled and the document released. WKMG hasn’t said when they submitted the request.

Unbanshee22 days ago

Lol, you must be new here. The state doesn't like to "live in the sunshine" when it comes to matters that the esteemed governor finds personally difficult

Chi8422 days ago

The memo is dated June 21. Reporting on it the day after Christmas seems to be the definition of “old news.” Although it could be that Florida dragged its feet releasing it for some reason.