BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s board of supervisors appointed former Clay County Manager Stephanie Kopelousos as its administrator.
The Kingsley Lake native takes over the $600,000-a-year job from Glenton Gilzean Jr., whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed as Orange County Supervisor of Elections after incumbent Bill Cowels retired.
Kopelousos’s father, Gus, and her grandfather were proprietors of the Garden Restaurant, a Starke landmark for decades. Best known for the live pecan tree that grew within the building, that structure now houses Starke’s Laredo Mexican Restaurant.
Congressional staffer, FDOT Secretary, Clay County Manager
After graduating from the University of Alabama in 1993, Kopelousos joined the staff of Congresswoman Tillie Fowler of Jacksonville.
The 1988 Bradford High School graduate moved to state government in 2001, serving as Florida’s Department of Transportation’s primary federal liaison in Washington. In December 2005, she was appointed the agency’s chief of staff and served as interim secretary from January 2007 until she was appointed secretary three months later.
Kopelousos served as Clay County manager from 2011 until 2018 when she became DeSantis’s legislative liaison.
In June 2023, she moved from the governor’s staff to his presidential campaign.
In her new job, the 54-year-old will oversee the district’s 36-square-mile governmental operations, including law enforcement, fire rescue, road construction and maintenance, land use regulation, and environmental protection.
The oversight district’s predecessor, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was signed into law by Gov. Claude Kirk in 1968 to give Walt Disney World more autonomy over local governance. The district covers the theme park’s land holdings and the cities of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake.
After the entertainment giant publicly opposed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act in 2022, the Florida Legislature dissolved the Reedy Creek Improvement District and replaced it with the oversight board.
While the Walt Disney Company appointed the board members of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the oversight board is appointed by the governor.
Lawsuits settled
On the same day of Kopelousos’ appointment, the Walt Disney Company and the oversight board announced a settlement of their state lawsuits.
During the last meeting of the Reedy Creek board, the panel enacted several development agreements that pre-empted the successor board from making certain changes in the district. The oversight board sued to annul the development agreements. Disney also sued the board in federal court, claiming that the legislature’s action in dissolving Reedy Creek violated the corporation’s constitutional right to free speech.
In the agreement, both parties dropped state litigation against one another, and Disney said it was pausing its federal lawsuit. Disney also agreed to void what the oversight board called a last-minute backroom deal, which kept policies enacted by Reedy Creek intact after the oversight board’s takeover.
“We are pleased to put an end to all litigation pending in state court in Florida between Disney and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District,” Walt Disney World President Jeff Vahle said in a statement. “This agreement opens a new chapter of constructive engagement with the district’s new leadership and serves the interests of all parties by enabling significant continued investment and the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and economic opportunity in the State.”
Bryan Griffin, the governor’s communications director, said, “We are glad that Disney has dropped its lawsuits against the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and conceded that their last-minute development agreements are null, void, and unenforceable. No corporation should be its own government. Moving forward, we stand ready to work with Disney and the district to help promote economic growth, family-friendly tourism, and accountable government in Central Florida.”
