Jacksonville Aviation Authority board Chair David Hodges Jr. leads a special meeting to consider filing a lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on July 16, 2026 at 8:42 pm
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A contentious 90-minute Jacksonville Aviation Authority meeting Tuesday ended with the biggest question still lingering:
Will the airport board sue the city of Jacksonville over what it sees as the City Council — pushed by council President Nick Howland — overstepping its influence on the independent authority’s budget?
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The board voted unanimously to hire its own legal representation outside of the city’s Office of General Counsel. The measure also authorizes the airport authority to take legal action against the city.
But the board in a subsequent vote ultimately chose to halt filing any lawsuit for 30 days and try to resolve its questions about the governance of the airport through mediation.
The airport authority’s administration and Howland, who’s also council’s liaison to agency, have been at odds for nearly three years as he’s pressed the independent authority to invest more money into economic development at Cecil Airport and Spaceport.
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The crux of the lawsuit stems from an amendment Howland proposed and City Council approved last September that sets aside $10 million in the airport budget for a proposed facility expansion of Florida State College of Jacksonville’s aviation mechanics program at Cecil.
Howland says an expansion would help the aviation industry deal with a shortage of mechanics. Aviation authority leadership says its been advised by the Federal Aviation Administration that this is an illegal diversion of its funds.
Airport authority board Chair David Hodges Jr. says he hopes mediation can resolve basic charter questions about who controls the authority’s money flow — the city, the state for Florida, the FAA or all three.
If not, a lawsuit could again be on the table.
“We just want clarity. We want clarity as a board. How do we hold JAA management and leadership accountable? And hopefully (in) this 30 days we can grab that clarity and resolve this before anything were to go to the court,” Hodges said.
Howland still wants the $10 million to be used to grow the aviation mechanics program and wants the city and airport officials to meet with the FAA about it. He maintains that the council’s budget resolution does not allow the money to be spent that way unless the federal agency agrees. As of Thursday, the federal government has not signed off on it.
The airport authority board alleges the council’s actions have frozen the funds, which does not allow officials to use the money on other issues. The draft lawsuit says airport administrators also worry, if the council gets more power over its budget, there could be an effect on the authority’s bond rating and make infrastructure projects at its four airport facilities — including Jacksonville International Airport — more expensive.
Howland called Thursday’s meeting and the potential lawsuit “a waste of time” and told news reporters after the vote that a lawsuit would be “a waste of taxpayer money.”
“They’re calling a special meeting. It should be about bringing an innovative aerospace company that’s going to create thousands of jobs,” Howland said. “And instead it was a debate about suing the city.”
Early this year, the riff between Howland and the aviation authority appeared to be cooling off. Howland and the authority’s board came to an agreement on changes to the charter that aim at boltering economic development at Cecil. Those changes were introduced by state Rep. Wyman Duggan, R-Jacksonville, in HB 4045, which passed unanimously and was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The bill and the charter changes it clears give the aviation authority responsibility for the
economic development of Cecil Airport and for growing the facility as an aerospace hub.
Cecil Airport and Spaceport sits on 6,082 acres — part of the much larger Cecil Commerce Center — on Jacksonville’s westside. The former Naval Air Station Cecil Field, the facility includes a runway rated for U.S. military use.
In recent years, the airport authority has secured multimillion-dollar expansions by Boeing Global Services for its maintenance and repair facilities, and Otto Aviation’s manufacturing plant.
Officials say there’s more room for growth in space and aviation industry support services.
The airport authority is scheduled give its annual budget presentation to the City Council on Aug. 14. Howland says the city’s Finance Committee reserved 90 minutes to review the airport’s budget — the most time allotted to any of the independent authorities — so officials will have time to detail the annual development for Cecil required in the new state law.
Airport authority officials said in the draft lawsuit that they fear council will use this year’s budget hearings to try again to redirect money in the JAA budget.
“The council has made clear, and so has the state Legislature, by a total vote of 167-0, that it wants JAA to accelerate investment at Cecil Field, turn it into an aerospace hub, and grow jobs there. We all firmly believe it could be a job growth engine,” Howland said.
“I wish JAA would focus with us on that instead of baseless resolutions and lawsuits. They’ve gone to the FAA to complain, they’ve issued three resolutions, and now they’re threatening this lawsuit which is full of inflammatory language,” he said.
The city’s general counsel, Michael Fackler, had previously determined that city lawmakers’ budget changes were legal. But he pushed back against the board’s assertion that its status as an independent authority that answers to federal regulations frees it from some of the rules of Jacksonville’s consolidated city/county government.
He said Thursday that there could be legal ramifications if the board tries to hire its own attorney outside the general counsel’s office. Like the city’s other independent authorities like JEA, they are represented in legal matters by city lawyers.
Fackler asked the board Thursday to give him and his attorneys time to issue a binding opinion on its assertions and address its concerns of revenue diversion by City Council.
“If there is confusion, if revenue diversion is driving this, let me make it perfectly clear. Council, if they try to create revenue diversion, I’m going to say no. You cannot force this board to spend a dime. I’m happy to put that in writing,” Fackler told the JAA board before the vote.
Lawsuit and liability
According to Fackler, he’d not heard from aviation authority officials since issues with charter changes had been resolved.
He warned board members that there’s a risk board members could be held personally liable by a court, if they hired and spent money on an outside attorney.
Fackler told the board Thursday that the General Counsel’s Office has historically been called “the glue” holding Jacksonville’s consolidated government together.
“I don’t say this lightly, but you are chipping away at the glue,” Fackler said.
Mayor Donna Deegan, speaking Tuesday on WJCT’s First Coast Connect, said she thinks there’s general agreement between city and airport officials on the importance of Cecil as an economic driver for Jacksonville. When asked if she’d be involved in trying to mend the relationship between the city and airport authority, Deegan said she’s “always gong to do what I can do.”
The mayor acknowledged FAA regulations have to be followed, but she wants both sides to find a “reasonable conclusion” without a lawsuit.
“I’m very concerned with things that weaken our consolidated form of government,” Deegan said. “And I think all of these ‘I want my own attorney’ … it’s fine. At the end of the day, though, the general counsel has to have the final say.”
