CAPE EIZABETH – Twice, in 2006 and 2010, Cape Elizabeth residents voted overwhelmingly in non-binding referendums against instituting parking fees at Fort Williams Park. However, the uproar was decidedly subdued in late 2011, when the Town Council voted 5-2 to begin charging an entrance fee for commercial vehicles.

Now two years old, that fee may soon get an update. At its most recent meeting, the Fort Williams Advisory Commission voted unanimously to add vans to the list of tour buses and trolley cars that must pay to visit the home of historic Portland Head Light.

Under the proposal, which still must go before the council for formal approval, commercially registered passenger vans would be charged $20 per visit, or $800 for the season, starting July 1. That fee is expected to go before the council at its Feb. 10 meeting.

Another recent commission recommendation passed last fall, to ban smoking in the 90-acre park complex, has been referred to the Town Council’s ordinance committee, where it is lying dormant while the three-member panel finishes work on a controversial firing range ordinance.

Since the start of the 2012 season, tour buses, as well as buses sent from cruise lines, have been charged $35 per visit, while so-called “trolley cars,” as well as buses making more than 30 stops in a season, are charged $1,000 for the year. According to a Jan. 7 memo to the advisory commission from Public Works Director Bob Malley, the town was contacted by “one of the tour bus operators,” who noticed a disparity in that large vans capable of carrying up to 15 people were being sent by the cruise lines, thus avoiding the fees charged to buses and trollies.

According to Bill Brownell, elected Jan. 16 to a second year as chairman of the Fort Williams Advisory Commission, the park garnered $27,000 last year from bus and trolley fees.

“That’s all new money, versus no money we got before,” said Brownell.

Those funds are important, he said, as it was about “four or five years ago” that the council, acting in its capacity as the board of directors for the Portland Head Light museum, notified the commission that it would no longer fund capital improvement projects at the 90-acre Fort Williams Park complex.

Instead, the money to fund capital improvements will now come from fees and rents, which the town has developed and controls.

Town Manager Michael McGovern says the museum and gift shop at Portland Head Light grosses about $500,000 in sales per year. However, net revenue after product costs, wages and other overhead amounts to about $70,000 “in a good year,” he has said. That money, as well as the town’s annual contribution, goes to routine maintenance, while the charitable Fort Williams Foundation raises money for special projects, such as the ongoing arboretum construction, including the children’s garden to be built next year, and the lighthouse overlook pod project scheduled to start in April.

In the past five years, a number of changes have been instituted at the park to help fund capital improvement projects. In addition to the new bus fees, a food vendor program was instituted in 2011, netting about $12,000 per year, site rental fees got a modest boost, and the Beach to Beacon road race, which previously got free use of the park for its annual event, was solicited for a $25,000 yearly donation. Also, leases for office space in the two buildings on Officer’s Row was opened up to commercial as well as nonprofit enterprises, boosting rental income from $11,000 to $45,000 per year.

In all, says Brownell, park revenue from fees and rentals have jumped from $26,866 in 2010 to the total expected by the end of the current fiscal year, about $166,000, a 517 percent increase.

“So, there’s money there. It is our charge to recommend to the Town Council that it be spent wisely,” said Brownell.

In addition to addressing some of the 80 “small improvement projects” recommended in the 2011 update of the Fort Williams Master Plan, proposed capital fund expenditures expected to be included in the next town budget that begins July 1 include:

• $8,500 for preliminary design and engineering for repair of the concrete parade field bleachers, used for many events during the year, including graduation ceremonies for Cape Elizabeth High School.

“The bleachers are now deteriorating to the point where they are becoming a safety hazard to those who use them,” wrote Malley in a Jan. 7 memo. “Portions of the risers are breaking off, which is a factor of the composition of the concrete and their exposure to the elements.”

According to Malley, once a plan is in place, repair of the bleachers would be recommended for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016.

• $23,000 for safety improvements to the Cliff Walk. In the current and previous fiscal years, money was appropriated to install railings along the northern section of the cliffside walking path.

“It is proposed to install approximately 180 feet of the same type of cable railing on the Cliffside site,” wrote Malley. “The area was cleared of invasive species in the fall of 2013 by volunteers working for the Arboretum. As a result, the work exposed a drop-off adjacent to the Cliff Walk that now requires a railing,” an issue reportedly raised by numerous respondents to a pedestrian safety study done last year.

• $32,000 for parking improvements at Ship Cove, where the lot was expanded last year and a cul-de-sac added, allowing drivers a safer way to turn and exit the area. The older part of the lot is scheduled to be torn up and repaved and surface drainage issues corrected.

Also, this week, requests for bids went out for four food vendor sites in the park. Bids for the sites are due to the town by 2 p.m. on Feb. 20. Contracts will be awarded no later than March 5.

When the program launched in 2011, the town got 11 bids for the four sites, for which the minimum bid ranged from $3,000 to $4,000 for the season. Last year, however, one site drew no bidders, and the commission has approved opening that site up beyond the limited ice-cream offerings it was allowed last year.

At the council’s Jan. 16 meeting, Karl and Sarah Sutton, who have operated the Bite Into Maine food cart at Fort Williams since the inception of the food vendor program, requested a long-term contract with the town.

The Suttons also offered to share costs with the town of running an electrical line to their vending site, given the number of generators (three) they’ve gone through since 2011. The Suttons have an opportunity to serve bicycling tours at the park this year, and hope to be on site seven days a week for the first time.

“The electricity would really allow us a certain level of consistency and one we would even be willing to pay for,” said Karl Sutton. “It would make such an impact in what we can do, especially given that our product is always fresh, never frozen.”

Malley said he would research the costs and technical needs to run a power line. However, while highly complimentary of the Suttons and open to future agreements, the commission chose to stick with the bid process this season as the vendor areas, now going into their fourth season, are still technically labeled a “pilot program.”