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06/15/10
Votes reverse parking fees for cars, tour buses at Fort Williams
In the wake of the June 8 advisory referendum on parking fees for Fort Williams, the Town Council on June 14 voted to halt plans for a pay/display system for collecting fees from passenger vehicles; and, to suspend a separate plan to collect parking fees from tour buses, trolleys or cruise ship visitors for the 2011 season.
The votes reverse actions the council took in February to help make Fort Williams park financially self-sustaining, but with these two options for generating revenue out of the immediate picture, the council also agreed June 14 to devote a workshop this summer to looking at capital needs at the park, and potential sources of funding for those needs.
The vote to not move forward with the pay/display system of collecting parking fees was unanimous, and reversed a February decision to establish a fee schedule for residents and non-residents to take effect April 1, 2011. The Feb. 8 action had also set a non-binding referendum on parking fees, which was defeated at the polls 2,532 to 1,262 on June 8.
Town Council Chair Anne Swift-Kayatta said the defeated referendum, the second such defeat in the last four years, to her meant two things: "That people love Fort Williams, no matter how they voted, they love the Fort; and secondly that they don't want the Fort to be paid for with parking fees on cars," she said.
The June 8 referendum asked voters whether they favored a pay/display system for collecting fees for vehicular parking, but the vote did not apply to a February council action to charge parking for tour buses and trolleys. That vote also directed Town Manager Michael McGovern to meet with representatives of the tour bus industry and to propose a schedule of tour bus fees no later than July 15.
McGovern presented a proposal on June 14, but the cost of collecting fees without pay/display system revenues prompted him to advise against tour bus fees.
In a memo to the council, McGovern estimated a potential $30,000 annual income from charging tour buses, offset by $22,000 in personnel and other costs to collect those fees. Without the revenue from pay/display, all of the cost of monitoring has to fall back on the bus and trolley fees, he said.
Tour buses also account for at least 33 percent of the $450,000 gross income generated at the lighthouse gift shop, McGovern said.
"I know buses are politically popular, but I think if the citizens knew it was only $8,000, and you were risking $150,000, I think the citizens might have a different opinion," McGovern said. "Based on all of the information that I'm aware of, I recommend that the council not adopt bus and trolley fees for 2011," he said. "I think it just doesn't bring in the money."
The council voted 6-1 not to move ahead with tour bus fees for the 2011 season. In a separate vote, councilors decided to consider bus fees in an overall plan for generating revenue for Fort Williams Park.
Voting against the decision not to charge tour buses in 2011 was Councilor Jessica Sullivan, who said she disagreed with other councilors' assertions that charging tourists only was unfair. "In my view there is a difference, and the difference is that the tour buses are commercial, for-profit entities," Sullivan said. "I recognize that there are difficulties, but we do have some daunting financial challenges for the Fort," she said.
Councilor David Sherman, who made the motion to not move forward with tour bus fees, said he was "totally opposed" to charging tour buses without the pay/display system for individual vehicles. "I appreciate the town manager's analysis of the potential fee income and the expenses associated with collecting those fees, but I just view this as an issue of fairness," Sherman said. "The town's citizens spoke loud and clear that they want the park to be free to visitors and I just can not come up with the difference between somebody who happens to enter the park sitting in their own car versus a person sitting in a tour bus," he said.
In a related vote, the council received a preliminary report from the Fort Williams Advisory Commission identifying capital needs at the park, and potential funding sources.
Jim Walsh, Town councilor who has been working with the commission on the council goal to aggressively seek revenues from Fort Williams Park, said the commission at their next meeting would begin reviewing a list of citizen suggestions for generating revenue. The suggestions were gathered through e-mail and at various public forums during the past year. The commission will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 17, at the Public Works facility on Cooper Drive.
The council on June 14 also unanimously upheld a vote they had taken Feb. 8 that Fort Williams should remain free of entry charge. A Feb. 8 vote to establish a Fort Williams Special Revenue Fund was deferred by the council June 14, pending resolution of accounting questions.
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