Thanks to Maine voters’ support for public investment, the Camp Ellis Pier will soon be a more pleasant place to visit.

With state and local support, the City of Saco plans to build permanent rest rooms on the pier. They are designed to be fully accessible to handicapped visitors, and are expected to be a vast improvement over the portable toilets now maintained in the vicinity.

 The rest rooms and other amenities are expected to cost more than $90,000, with $77,400 covered by the Small Harbor Improvement Program operated by the Maine Department of Transportation. In the past, the state program has helped pay for such projects as the installation of floats and a gangway at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit and construction of the Scarborough Pier.

The Small Harbor Improvement Program is funded through borrowing proposed annually by the MDOT. This year the agency requested $500,000 ”“ a small part of the $47.8 million bond issue approved with the passage of Question 3 on June 8.

Question 3 passed with a strong majority. That bond issue will also pay for $24.8 million in highway improvements, as well as the proposed acquisition of 240 miles of railroad track in Aroostook County. It allocates another $6.5 million for construction of a deep water pier for cruise ships in Portland Harbor.

Saco’s much smaller share will help provide jobs, as well as solving a long-deferred problem, according to Mayor Ron Michaud. “This is a great grant,” he exclaimed last week.

Further brightening the mood at last week’s council meeting, the city’s public works director described the bathrooms as “the number one need” in Camp Ellis.

The city will contribute $14,000 toward the construction of a new building on the pier. Besides rest rooms, the project will establish a new boat waste pump-out facility, replacing a portable tank and hand pump.

In a year when town and city budgets are tight as can be, Saco is fortunate to be one of the beneficiaries of a state bond proposal. This worthwhile project will outlive the 10-year bond that will finance it, and make the Camp Ellis Pier an even more valuable asset than it is already.