Our lives are filled with fees these days. We pay them on our phone bills, we pay them on our cable bills, we pay them at ATM machines, and we pay them any time we apply for a license or register something.

It would be a shame to tack another fee onto that list by making people pay to park at Fort Williams, one of the most beautiful parks in the state and home to one its most recognizable landmarks.

The Town Council Monday night decided to appoint a committee to consider a so-called pay and display fee for the park. The fee is one of five options studied by the Fort Williams Advisory Committee.

If the Town Council were to adopt the fee, the town would install solar-powered machines that would dispense time- and date-stamped tickets at the parking lots. The machines could be installed as early as this July at a cost of $50,000.

Charging fees to access Fort Williams has become a perennial subject of debate in Cape Elizabeth. That’s only natural as the town considers the $120,000 cost of maintaining the park in its budget each year. Home to Portland Head Light, the park attracts more than 1 million visitors each year, many of them from outside of Cape Elizabeth and outside of the state.

However, ever since the town bought the park for $200,000 from the federal government in 1964, it has remained free of fees, and that’s the way it should stay. Maine needs coastal parks. They attract millions of visitors to this state every year. While those visitors might be “from away,” they are a vital part of the state’s economy.

And, perhaps more importantly, open access to coastal parks improves the quality of life for all of us who live here in this state year-round. Let’s say a mother in Scarborough decides to take her kids to the park for picnic, or a retired couple from South Portland decides to take a walk in the park. Should they then be charged a fee for that luxury?

Some might argue that those people are enjoying the park and should therefore help pay to maintain it. However, many communities have parks that cost money to maintain. The Eastern and Western Promenades in Portland are prime examples of that. Keeping Fort Williams free of charge would be a service to the entire region.

Charging a fee, on the other hand, could hurt the town’s image because the fee would, mostly likely, not apply to residents. While that makes sense because residents are already paying for the park through their taxes, the town ‘s residents are perceived as affluent enough to be able to afford the upkeep of the park.

The town already charges fees for renting a picnic shelter, gazebo or bandstand. Those fees, which are expected to bring in $36,000 next year, are reasonable because the people who pay them are doing more than just visiting the park. They’re using it for their events and social gatherings.

Of all the fees studied by the Fort Williams Advisory Committee, the pay and display option is the most palatable. However, charging a fee just to visit one of the state’s most beautiful parks and well-known landmarks remains a bad idea.

Brendan Moran, editor