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Washington County approves 3% T‑hangar rent increase and raises airport daily parking to $6
Summary
After a public hearing with mixed public comment, the county approved a 3% increase to T‑hangar rents and a separate motion to raise daily airport parking from $5 to $6 to help cover insurance and infrastructure costs.
Washington County commissioners on April 29 approved a package of airport fee changes that includes a roughly 3% increase in T‑hangar rental charges and a separate 20% increase to daily terminal parking, raising the daily maximum to $6. The board adopted the hangar increase on staff recommendation and then approved an amendment limiting parking to $6 per day rather than the larger increase proposed by staff.
Neil Doran, introducing the item on behalf of the airport, said the hangar increase is meant to keep the airport as a self‑supporting enterprise fund and to help offset rising costs including a nearly $20,000 jump in insurance premiums and a planned FAA‑funded repaving project. “The airport is proposing as a self‑supporting enterprise fund…an approximately 3% increase in our T hanger rental charges,” Doran told the board.
During the public hearing several residents urged different outcomes. Sean Porter said he opposed raising fees, criticized commissioners’ pay raises and called for greater fiscal restraint. “I am 100% against this,” Porter said. Other speakers supported a modest increase: Curtis Ray argued the county undercharges the market and recommended running the airport more like a business, while Amber Dwire objected to the size and distribution of the parking increase, noting that the agenda showed a 3% hangar increase but a 44% increase in parking in the proposed schedule.
Commissioners questioned staff about parking utilization, credit‑card processing fees (staff said the county had absorbed roughly $25,000 a year in processing costs), and how changes could affect airline partners. Board members then separated the two proposals so they could be voted on independently. The record shows both measures were adopted; formal tallies for the hangar increase are not fully specified in the transcript, and the parking increase was approved by voice vote as presented.
The airport will use the additional revenue to cover higher insurance costs and to provide local matching dollars for a planned FAA repaving project in the T‑hangar area, staff said. The board did not further amend the airport project plan at the meeting.
