Everglades Airpark Committee Delayed as Closing Looms


As if attempting to take off without a flight plan, the committee created to save Everglades City Airpark is grounded by a lack of county information, members say.

Collier County Commissioners were about to consider a study to close the Everglades City Airpark through a consent agenda item at their meeting in March.

Residents and pilots were outraged that such a big community decision would be considered by the County Commission without public discussion and input. Now, the committee created to oversee alternatives to closure is stifled by lack of county transparency in data, members say.

“It just stinks to high heaven,” said Marco Island resident Kevin Dohm, who serves on the Collier County Metropolitan Planning Organization. “Something had to be going on beneath the covers for quite a while to get it that far," Dohm said of the consent agenda item. Dohm is an aviator and serves on the Marco Island Bike Path Advisory Committee as well.

As a compromise with concerned citizens and aviators, Commissioners moved the Everglades Airpark item to the regular agenda, allowing public discussion on the concept of studying its closure, and then created an ad hoc committee to study ways for the airport to begin making money. Meanwhile, the county would continue to pursue factors related to closing the airport, which is a waterfront property that has suffered damage from multiple hurricanes. This includes asking the Federal Aviation Administration, state and federal government officials what grants, if any, would need to be repaid and the process of a closure.

Commissioner Bill McDaniel led the way to consideration of the airport’s closing, saying it was losing money based on information he was given by county staff. In a phone interview, McDaniel proposed a public boat ramp in place of the airport, saying it would be more popular and more profitable.

He and county staff were not immediately available to respond to the lack of information cited by committee members this May. However, just before press time, McDaniel agreed to an upcoming interview to discuss the airport’s status and the committee’s role with this reporter.

Meanwhile, Stacey Heaton, who leads the ad hoc committee and is southern regional manager of the national Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, leading the division in Airport Advocacy and Government Affairs, said she felt the ad hoc committee was possibly created as a sort of decoy or ruse and that the ideas provided by the committee to assist in making the airport profitable would not be seriously considered by the County Commission, who acts as the airport authority for Everglades Airpark, Marco Island Executive Airport, and Immokalee Regional Airport. Heaton canceled the ad hoc committee’s May 14 meeting due to lack of data necessary to move forward, she said. This was data that Bryant Garrett, the county’s airport manager since May 2024, had committed to providing during the committee’s first meeting in April, Heaton said.

Garrett was not immediately available to respond to this reporter’s inquiries.

That first meeting of the ad hoc committee did not go well, Heaton said. Instead, the airport manager provided a presentation of why the airport must close, citing only need for repairs and lack of income.

Dohm was perplexed by the leaning toward airport closure when as a member of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee, a part of the Collier County Metropolitan Planning Organization that considers transportation needs, Everglades Airpark is slated for receiving approximately $4.5 million in capital improvement funding from federal, state and local sources in the next five years - the vast majority of which comes from outside Collier County.

The current losses experienced by the airpark are due to management decisions, he said.

Heaton agreed.

“It’s like a death by a thousand cuts,” Heaton said.

The airport stopped selling fuel because the card reader doesn’t work, county staff said. Now, the fuel is old and cannot be sold, and if it can be sold to airboats, the county is not allowing it, said Dohm.

Hangar doors were not fixed following hurricane damage, so income from hangar rentals was slashed as well, they said.

Then, while reviewing a 2021 project that reconstructed the runway, Heaton noted the runway was lowered, increasing its susceptibility to flooding damage. “This is pointing to the ineptness,” she said.

The next Everglades Airpark Ad Hoc Committee meeting is scheduled 4:00 PM on Wednesday May 21. If the data necessary is not provided, it may be postponed again, said Heaton.

The ad hoc committee includes 39 members. While they await data from the county, committee members are compiling their own data and ideas related to the airport’s impacts on Everglades City, safety benefits, revenue, and the airport’s management, Heaton said. However, it’s all moot if the County will not correct the causes of the shortfalls and consider the remedies, committee members warned.

During the first ad hoc committee meeting on April 30, Heaton asks about the lot next to the airport which the county had attempted to purchase, but the price could not be agreed upon. The 52-acre lot remains for sale at a listing price of $9.5 million by LSI Commercial. Garrett responded that there is an eagle nesting on the lot and that there may be problems developing it. Details about that lot would be available in other growth management departments, said Collier County Director of Operations Darren Hutton, according to the meeting transcripts. He was going to connect Heaton and the appropriate county contacts, according to the transcripts. Other questions included details about the repairs needed to sell fuel and to repair hangar doors to get rentals back, both of which were items damaged electronically by being underwater, Garrett and Hutton reported.

Heaton requested engineer reports on the airport’s damages, to which Heaton replied he could respond to that “offline” and that the details may come from staff facilities personnel rather than outside engineers.

Heaton and committee members asked for information, such as details on damages, income, expenses, grants, and loans, with the answers mostly remaining IOUs by the end of the last meeting.

According to Trinity Scott at a previous Commission meeting, all three airports combined are profitable, with Marco Island Executive Airport leading the way generating $2.5 million of income in 2024; $130,000 produced at Immokalee Regional Airport and a $150,000 deficit at Everglades Airpark in 2024. 

“I hope the County replies with the information the Ad hoc Committee needs. Preparing a response may take time; it’s often safer to listen, wait, and follow the process, which, unsettling as it can be, may best unfold in patience and shared responsibility,” said Naples resident Dennis “Duke” Vasey, who attended the first ad hoc meeting as a guest.

Speculation just adds noise, Vasey said.