Bus fare ‘not fair’

Fee will mean fewer visits for Fort Williams, tour operators predict.

CAPE ELIZABETH — The Cape Elizabeth Town Council voted 5-2 Monday to begin assessing a fee on tour groups entering Fort Williams Park, starting with the 2012 season.

Although the move would seem counter to the wishes of residents, who in 2006 and 2010 voted overwhelmingly against implementing parking fees for all visitors, a majority of the council said those decisions do not apply to commercial entities.

“I can’t believe that a business, whether it’s a trolley company, a coach, or a tour operator, can listen to the debate that has gone on in this town about this subject for the last several years and not come forward and take the moral obligation that I believe they should take,” said Councilor James Walsh. “They’ve got to have some skin in the game. They’re taking this incredible asset that is world-known, and they are selling tours to what we’ve expended tax money on for years, and they are going to the bank with it.”

“We must drive revenue to support the park now and in the future,” agreed Councilor Frank Governali. “Costs will rise inevitably and we cannot continue to put that burden on Cape Elizabeth taxpayers forever.”

As might be expected, tour operators see the issue differently.

“The implication I leave here with tonight is that it’s their playground and they don’t want us here,” said Jeanne McGurn, of Maine Tour Connecton, after the vote.

Council Chairman David Sherman expressed a similar view.

“I think this all boils down to the fact that some people in town just don’t like the buses,” he said.

“This fee is not fair,” said cruise ship director Greg Gordon. “In fact, it’s discriminatory. We’d support a fee of some kind, but it’s got to be fair and equitable, and charged to everyone.”

“They’re biting the hand that feeds them,” said McGurn. “I mean, we bring people there to spend money.”

The specter of diminished returns at the Portland Head Light gift shop was raised. McGurn and Gordon both predicted fewer visits to the park next year, and thus lower sales.

Town Manager Michael McGovern said the museum and gift shop at Portland Head Light grossed $500,000 in sales last year. However, net revenue after product costs, wages and other overhead amounts to just $70,000 “in a good year,” he said.

Next year, buses entering the park will have to pay $40 per trip, whether sent by a cruise ship or “arriving randomly.” Bus tours sent by nonprofit groups will be exempt from the fee. Meanwhile, trolleys that frequent the park will be assessed a $1,500 annual entrance fee.

According to Bill Nickerson, chairman of the Fort Williams Advisory Commission, three sight-seeing trolleys made regular runs to the park last year, while 784 buses passed through the gate. If that number holds true in 2012, the town will reap $35,860 in fees.

However, McGovern has said that after an as-yet-undetermined method of collecting the fee is put in place, actual revenue should be “about $30,000,” after factoring out administrative costs.

Any amount is fine with Betty Crane, who began the charge for bus fees last spring, in appearances before the Nickerson-led commission.

“We have to face the fact that we need some money,” she said Monday, following a trail of like-minded citizens to the public hearing podium – a stark contrast to last month’s council meeting, when Crane was the lone champion for bus fees among half a dozen dissenters.

“The buses have enjoyed the profits of coming here for years and $40 is practically nothing,” said Crane.

In May, when the fee structure was first presented to the council by Nickerson, Michael Foye, a tour guide for Intercruise Shoreside and Port Services, addressed the potential cost to his company, which shuttles about 23,000 people into Fort Williams Park on 525 bus trips during its 33-day season.

“If you do that math – $40 times 525 buses – it’s over $21,000,” he said. “This is a significant impact on us.”

Foye was not at Monday’s hearing, but several other tour operators were on hand, and none liked what they heard.

Both McGurn and Gregg Isherwood, owner of Custom Coach and Limousine, say they’ve already begun advertising next year’s tour packages. Because the new fee was not factored in, they will have to “eat it,” they say. Both join Gordon in complaining that no one from the town ever reached out to them for input when a fee was first being considered. As a result, all promise fewer visits next year.

“It won’t be a destination for us, I’ll offer it as a side item,” said Isherwood, who claims to send “200 to 300” buses into the park each year.

“Cruise ship passengers don’t really need to go to Portland Head Light,” he said. “They see it from the water coming in and going out.”

Sherman pointed out that visitors who arrive with the tour buses generally stay in the park just long enough to snap a picture of the lighthouse and dash into the gift shop. Bus exhaust aside, these tourists actually have less of an impact on the park that locals who get in free, he said, citing joggers, dog walkers and users of the various tennis courts and athletic fields.

Sherman also rebutted a point made by Councilor Sara Lennon, who predicted that tourists would be “delighted” to pay an extra dollar – assuming 40 passengers per bus – whether it is passed on by the tour operator or handed over on site.

“The idea that people from away can afford it, I think, as a justification, with all due respect, stinks,” he said.

Still, Sherman said his primary reason for weighing in against the bus fee was the previous public votes. Like the other dissenter, outgoing Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta, he has voted for parking fees in the past, he said.

“I actually regret sending the last referendum out, because I clearly misjudged the town’s reaction,” he said. “But, with that vote in mind, I cannot in clear conscience vote in favor of fees. As I view it, it’s simply not fair to charge some people to access the park, but not all.”

Swift-Kayatta agreed. Although concerned that the fee would apply to older people who had no other means to access the park, she also felt most swayed by the previous votes.

“I remember the signs that said, ‘Keep the Park Free,’” she said, adding that no sign had continued, “Except for buses.”

Despite the objection of two senior councilors, the majority mood in the hall easily prevailed. Most citizens who spoke said tour groups should pay a fee because, unlike individual visitors, they bring people into the park for profit, even as Isherwood claimed, “We’re not exactly raking it in hand over fist.”

“I believe very strongly that, whatever that profit is, we need a piece of it to come back to us,” said Walsh.

“They should share our burden,” said resident Jessie Timberlake, “as they share our treasure.”