While not quite on the level that you suggest, there are some very curious
public entities in Florida.
As an accommodation to the building of Walt Disney World, the State of Florida
created on May 12, 1967, three public entities to encompass nearly 40 square
miles owned by the Walt Disney Company: the City of Bay Lake, the City of Reedy
Creek (later renamed the City of Lake Buena Vista), and the Reedy Creek
Improvement District. As development ensued, the RCID (which overlays both
cities) became the company's primary vehicle for its adventures in government.
The RCID is governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors elected by
landowners. The supervisors are five Disney executives, each of whom owns a
small tract of undeveloped land in the district in order to qualify. The RCID
taxes all land within its boundaries, almost entirely Disney's, and provides
such public services as roads, fire protection, emergency medical service,
garbage disposal, mosquito control, environmental protection, building codes,
and electric, water, gas, and sewer utilities. The water utilities include
heated and chilled water for the operation of central heating and
air-conditioning systems. Maintenance of RCID roads and actual operations of
RCID-owned garbage and utility systems are contracted out to Reedy Creek Energy
Services, a Disney subsidiary. The RDIC has the power of eminent domain within
and without its boundaries, the latter primarily used for drainage canals.
Property taxes paid by the company to the RCID for these services are
tax-deductible, and the RCID can finance its works with tax-free municipal
bonds. The 2000 populations of the two cities, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista,
were 23 and 16, respectively, all being Disney employees and their families
living in company housing. The two city governments are elected by those
residents who are of voting age, but the cities have few functions beyond
preventing annexation of Disney land by any other cities. As Disney has
developed several bona fide well-populated residential communities on its
properties, it has de-annexed them from the two cities and the RCID so that the
residents will gain no political power in the company-controlled public
entities.
See the web site of the RCID at
http://www.rcid.org/ .
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Seÿffffe1n O'Connell" <gleannmaghair@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>; <boundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 2:06 AM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Corporation/company land enjoying sovereign status??
> Are there companies/corporations that have sovereign
> or quasi-sovereign status over a territory? (e.g. the
> United Fruit Company in Colombia or Shell in Nigeria)
>
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