Jacksonville City Council member Nick Howland had been butting heads for two years with the Jacksonville Aviation Authority when he vented to NASA chief of staff Brian Hughes, a former top city administrator, over the summer. “They’ve pissed me off a bit,” Howland said of the agency.
Aviation authority CEO Mark VanLoh has been a “real obstacle to me to get anything done at Cecil field for workforce development and aerospace and industry growth,” Howland told Hughes over a series of text messages that were later disclosed in a public-records request.
Acting like a “real gentleman,” Howland lamented, has “not been very effective.”
The source of acrimony stems, at least in part, from the hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on hand that the Jacksonville Aviation Authority holds and Howland’s belief — which aviation officials dispute — that the agency is not aggressively courting more aerospace development at Cecil Airport, a former Navy base with one of the longest runways on the East Coast.
Howland asked Hughes how he viewed VanLoh from Hughes’s time in Mayor Lenny Curry’s administration. He also wanted to know who VanLoh’s “real allies” are.
“My experience was that Mark was very good for our main airport but is resistant to anything about the other locations — and it always seemed fiscal,” Hughes responded. “I think ur on to something by trying to win the board opinion and find pressure around him.”
“Thank you,” Howland texted back. “Yeah, I think that’s the right play. I appreciate your advice on it.”
The text messages didn’t result in Hughes going any further in helping Howland, who is the liaison between City Council and the aviation authority.
Hughes, commenting on his texts with Howland, emphasized he holds respect for VanLoh and said he hadn’t been engaged with the issue since those messages, nor had Howland asked him to be.
But Howland’s outreach to Hughes does show the wide net Howland has cast in trying to move the aviation authority toward spending its money on an array of city projects and priorities he has identified over the past two years.
He has met individually with board members and the authority’s staff, made a presentation to the full board, contacted administrators at airports in other states, talked with Federal Aviation Authority officials and used his position on the council’s Finance Committee to win support for amendments moving around millions of dollars in the authority’s 2025-26 budget.
And throughout, he has peppered authority officials and city attorneys with questions and observations over email and in council meetings, often telegraphing frustration with his lack of progress in finding ways to use the agency’s cash to benefit city priorities.
Aviation authority CEO on Howland: ‘This guy won’t stop’
Howland’s maneuvering has caused his counterpart at the aviation authority to share his own frustration on social media that agreeing to Howland’s requests would put the authority in violation of strict regulations against diverting airport revenue to prohibited purposes.
“This guy won’t stop,” VanLoh wrote last year in an online conversation with other airport executives on LinkedIn.
Howland said in an interview he doesn’t want to change the leadership at the aviation authority. He has confidence in VanLoh based on the progress of the airport system under VanLoh’s watch, particularly at Jacksonville International Airport.
“Every action I’ve taken is well within the rights and the powers of the Jacksonville City Council,” Howland said. “I’m trying to make JAA a better community partner and create jobs at Cecil Field. That’s my mission.”
Howland, who is executive director of the nonprofit The Fire Watch, also is managing director of Great Bridge Capital Advisors, a firm he founded in 2017 to help companies in the aviation, marine and defense industries.
Howland said Great Bridge Capital Advisors has no connection to any companies at Cecil Airport. His financial disclosure form shows the firm’s only client is Wing Group. The company’s plant is located on the Northside of Jacksonville where it makes rafts used by NASA and SpaceX aircraft.
Howland said his experience in the aerospace industry helps him understand the potential Cecil Airport has for growth, but he does not have any clients operating at Cecil Airport and has no intention of taking any clients who are at Cecil.
“I have no personal benefit whatsoever,” he said.
Cecil Airport notched ‘homeruns’ with Boeing and Otto Aviation
The aviation authority — an independent agency overseen by a seven-member board appointed by the mayor and governor — has repeatedly said that while it seeks to develop Cecil Airport, it must follow Federal Aviation Authority regulations that restrict how airports can spend their revenue or risk facing severe financial penalties.
According to the authority, those regulations make running a “safe and secure airport system” the main mission for Jacksonville International Airport, Cecil Airport, Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport and Herlong Recreational Airport.
“The reason for this is simple — the financial needs of an airport system take priority over economic development and job growth,” the authority said in a statement. “Resurfacing a runway, while potentially not an attractive project to an elected official, is of paramount importance to the safety of pilots and the passengers they transport. Economic development and job growth are the byproduct of what airports do, but it cannot be their primary responsibility.”
The authority’s statement didn’t address questions about the relationship between VanLoh and Howland.
The aviation authority points to recent wins at Cecil Airport such as expansion by Boeing, a longtime tenant, that is adding 550 new jobs. Otto Aviation announced this year it will build a business jet manufacturing plant at Cecil Airport that the company says will bring at least 400 jobs at an average $90,000 salary by the end of 2031 and could expand to 1,200 jobs by 2040.
“These two projects at Cecil are homeruns,” VanLoh said at the Aug. 15 City Council hearing on the authority’s budget. “They happen once in a career at an airport. In the last couple of years, we’ve had two.”
He said the aviation authority also has invested in Cecil Spaceport and is working with a company interested in using the spaceport as the landing site for spacecraft in partnership with Mayo Clinic to produce pharmaceutical products in zero-gravity conditions.
Howland’s requests include FSCJ training center expansion
VanLoh’s description of Cecil Airport as the “star of the show” for the airport system didn’t stop City Council from amending the aviation authority’s 2025-26 budget.
On motions by Howland, the council used the authority’s retained earnings to earmark about $2.7 million for Cecil Spaceport construction projects, $500,000 for a study on how the aviation authority will grow Cecil Airport and $10 million for renovating a hangar, preferably for use by Florida State College at Jacksonville for expanding its aviation mechanic training program.
The aviation authority had already gotten a response in January from the Federal Aviation Authority that it could not use airport revenues for the FSCJ training program. Howland said he thought the FAA could be persuaded to agree.
“I don’t want to hear any more ‘no’s,'” Howland told aviation authority leaders at the budget hearing. “I want to hear, ‘Alright, let’s see what you’re talking about, Mr. Howland.'”
VanLoh said the “‘no’ isn’t from us. It’s from our boss.”
“And let’s see if we can work together to get your boss to a ‘yes’,” Howland said.
The proposal for the FSCJ training center was the latest in a series of requests Howland has made to the aviation authority since he learned in summer 2023 the authority had a cash balance exceeding $300 million, according to emails among Howland, aviation authority leaders, the FAA and the city’s Office of General Counsel.
His first round of proposals involved ways to use what Howland called the authority’s “excess profits” to help the city with its own budget.
He suggested the aviation authority could make a $10 million charitable contribution to the Kids Hope Alliance, pay a management fee to the city, increase what the authority pays the city for public safety and utility services, pay “royalties” to the city for use of the land currently owned by authority, and refrain from charging rent or parking for Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and city officials.
Howland asked the Office of General Counsel in a May 31, 2024 email whether the FAA’s revenue diversion law would allow the authority to pay for construction of a new jail on land at Cecil Airport or Jacksonville International Airport.
“He actually wants to relocate the jail to JIA or Cecil,” aviation authority Chief Compliance Officer Devin Reed later wrote in an email to other authority administrators. “Unbelievable.”
During an August 2024 budget hearing, Howland acknowledged that FAA regulations against revenue diversion blocked the proposals he had put forward up to that point.
“Those things were all no, no, no, no, no, nixed, not possible,” Howland said.
VanLoh complains about Howland in LinkedIn messages
Howland then raised two new proposals. He asked the aviation authority to consider helping JaxPort pay the cost of raising power lines spanning the St. Johns River — a project aimed at giving more clearance for big cargo container ships — and partner with Florida State College at Jacksonville on expanding its training center for FAA-certified aviation mechanics at Cecil Airport.
That new requests prompted VanLoh to write Howland “won’t stop.”
“A city councilman here thinks it’s his to spend on anything he wants,” VanLoh said in his LinkedIn message. “Time for the FAA Revenue Diversion Team to suit up!”
His complaint resonated with former aviation authority CEO Steve Grossman, who retired from the authority in 2018 after nine years and was replaced by VanLoh.
“During my time at every budget hearing some council member would ask about getting airport money,” Grossman responded. “Luckily, the Council Auditor would jump in and say it’s against federal regulations. If they are not doing that now, some education on their part is needed.”
VanLoh wrote that Howland had repeatedly been “told no” by city attorneys and a memo from the Kaplan Kirsh law firm.
“He was on FOX this morning saying we need to pay for the power line raising at the port because we use electricity at Craig!” VanLoh wrote.
Howland subsequently dropped his pursuit of aviation authority funding for the power lines after General Counsel Michael Fackler wrote in an Oct. 8, 2024 memo that the aviation authority would be breaking federal revenue diversion law if it spent money on the power lines because the authority would gain no benefit from the project.
At that point, Howland narrowed his focus on getting the aviation authority to accelerate its spending on Cecil Airport.
He made a presentation in November 2024 to the aviation authority board asking it to use $29 million of its revenue for expanding Florida State College at Jacksonville’s aviation training center. He called it an “unsurpassed opportunity” to lead in workforce development for in-demand, high-paying careers.
The aviation authority sent a copy of Howland’s proposal to the FAA, prompting the agency to say federal regulations would not allow spending airport revenue on the training center, but FAA could approve the authority providing existing hangar space at a reduced rental rate to FSCJ.
New joint committee will bring together council and authority
Howland and the aviation authority have sought to hit the reset button on their relationship since that contentious budget hearing in August.
After the aviation authority board responded to the City Council’s budget amendments by unanimously approving a resolution condemning the changes, a meeting among Howland, current board chairman David Hodges Jr., a JAX Chamber representative and others chartered a new path forward.
Howland announced on Oct. 6 the formation of a joint committee made up of City Council members and aviation authority board members for discussions of economic development at Cecil Airport.
Aviation authority spokesman Michael Stewart followed up by saying the aviation authority is firmly committed to expanding aerospace activity at its airport system. He said the authority looks forward to working with City Council and Howland “in our shared pursuit of economic development.”
Howland said he applauds what the authority has done at Cecil Airport but “there’s unrealized potential and we can move faster” because the state Legislature is “working actively to increase the aerospace activity in the state of Florida and I see Cecil as a real prominent piece of that.”
Howland said he thinks the joint committee will enable City Council and the aviation authority to proceed “in lockstep” on that goal.
But if his forecast of “blue skies ahead” reflects an optimistic outlook on putting behind the turbulence of the past two years, pilots know that conditions can change in mid-flight going forward.
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This piece was co-reported and co-published with The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville’s daily newspaper.
Nate Monroe is the executive editor of The Tributary. He can be reached at nate.monroe@jaxtrib.org.
David Bauerlein is a metro reporter for The Florida Times Union. He can be reached at dbauerlein@jacksonville.com.
