Page Field hangar rates.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nCommissioner Brian Hamman, who is up for reelection in November, made a motion prior to the vote to phase in the Page Field hangar rate increases over the next three years rather than raising them overnight Oct. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPage Field has always felt like more of a hometown airport,\u201d Hamman said. \u201cWe have more empathy for our local folks who use that. These folks have approached and asked that we go back to the original proposal. I would like to amend the motion to a three-year phase-in, the one that was proposed by our staff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commissioner David Mulicka called the pilots some of the \u201cnicest lobbyists he\u2019s ever met.\u201d But putting his business hat on, he preferred a two-year phase-in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass said he was fine with a three-year phase-in. But he still voted against approving the budget as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pendergrass was on the losing end of the 3-1 vote, with Hamman, Mulicka and Trish Petrosky in favor of approving the budget, which included the parking and hangar rate increases. Pendergrass, who, like Hamman, is up for reelection in November, said he voted against the budget because both the parking and hangar rate increases were too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Aircraft](\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6a97068468feb.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
A small aircraft approaches Page Field in Fort Myers, where pilots are raising concerns about steep hangar rate increases approved by the Lee County Port Authority.<\/p>\n
Bonnie Dorsey<\/p>\n
Commissioner Kevin Ruane did not vote because he did not attend the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parking rates at RSW will rise from a daily maximum of $24 to $28 in the short-term lot and from $11 to $14 in the long-term lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hangar rate increases at Page Field will vary depending on the type of hangar, but rates will rise each year over the next three years to bring them in line with market rates, according to a study of seven other Gulf Coast airports in Florida conducted by the port authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is death by a thousand cuts instead of just being stabbed to death overnight,\u201d said Ramon Pabalan, an area pilot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re pricing us out of the market,\u201d said Jeff Dukes, an airplane owner who uses Page Field. \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a next generation of pilots.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frank Jannelli, owner of a Cessna 340, pleaded with the commissioners during public comment not to raise the hangar rates. He asked that the commissioners release the complete market study \u2014 which is available as a public record \u2014 disclose the additional revenues that would be generated and base the rate increases on inflation rather than full market value.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6a9af512b5f8c.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Lee County Board of Port Commissioners meets Sept. 3 in Fort Myers. Commissioners approved a three-year phase-in of hangar rate increases at Page Field as part of the Lee County Port Authority\u2019s 2026-27 budget.<\/p>\n
David Dorsey<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better than doing it overnight,\u201d Jannelli said after the meeting. \u201cBut in three years, my rents are going up by 87%.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
None of the commissioners discussed the reasons for raising the hangar or parking rates after public comment. Pendergrass did question when the parking rates were last raised. Three years ago, the short-term lot daily maximum rose from $18 to $24.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Port Authority employees will receive 4% pay raises effective Oct. 1 as part of the budget approval. In a separate vote, the port commissioners were set to give Port Authority Executive Director Steve Hennigan a 4% raise, as well \u2014 until Robbie Roepstorff, a member of the Lee County Port Authority Special Management Committee, spoke up in favor of boosting the raise to 6%, the maximum allowed under his contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The motion passed unanimously following Roepstorff\u2019s comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just said the fabulous job he has done,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he took over a lot of craziness going on. He has addressed every income revenue stream. \u2026 I think he\u2019s definitely entitled to 6%.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee County Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass, right, talks with local pilots after the Sept. 3 Lee County Port Authority…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,897,156397,60013,152220,10256],"class_list":["post-391159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-fort-myers","tag-hangar-rates","tag-lee-county-port-authority","tag-page-field","tag-southwest-florida-international-airport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6a9af512bdeaa.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n