By Zack Anchors

Staff Writer

    Well before supporters of the annual Relay for Life
fundraiser showed up at a South Portland City Council meeting last week
to protest the city’s denial of a permit to hold the event in South
Portland, City Manager Thaddeus Jankowski had told the American Cancer
Society (ACS) that he would bring all the stakeholders involved
together in an effort to resolve the matter. But after what was
described as three months of stonewalling by city officials, ACS Relay
for Life organizer Jeff Ball continued to send out press releases and
emails encouraging supporters to rally at the meeting and tell the
council they should allow the event to happen. 

    Dozens of business leaders, cancer survivors,
students from South Portland and Scarborough schools, and other
supporters of ACS showed up at the meeting to explain how meaningful
the event is to them.

    “It would be a tremendous impact on the community,”
Scarborough High School student Jeff Poulin told the council during the
meeting’s public comments period.

    Every year, hundreds of residents of South Portland
travel to Falmouth Middle School for the annual Relay for Life. The
goal of the event is to raise money for cancer research through keeping
teams of participants walking on the track for eighteen hours.

    People come from all over Southern Maine for the
event, but residents of South Portland turn out in the highest numbers,
according to Ball. That is why many volunteers with the relay have been
asking the ACS to hold another Relay for Life in South Portland–one
that is easier to travel to and that offers an alternate date to the
Falmouth event.

    The high school seemed to organizers like a perfect
place for a new Relay for life location and members of the school
administration were encouraging about the idea, said Ball.

    But after applying to the Parks and Recreation
Department for formal permission for the event, on Oct. 20 the ACS got
a flat-out denial, said Ball.

    According to Jankowski, Parks and Recreation
Director Dana Anderson initially denied the permit due to a number of
concerns related to the event. He was worried about the event’s effect
on the carefully-cared-for fields at the high school, concerned there
might be conflicts with other events and unsure how involved city staff
would need to be in the event.

    Overall, Anderson felt the city was not ready for the event, said Jankowski.

    But Ball was also told, said Jankowski, that it
might be possible to hold the event the following year, after more
planning and consideration. Anderson himself could not be reached for
comment.

    Ball said the request for permission to hold the
event at the high school was appealed to the interim city manager Jim
Gailey, before Jankowski had been hired.

    Ball said he was told by Gailey that the city was
sticking with Anderson’s decision, the same response Ball said he got
from former mayor Maxine Beecher and other officials he contacted.

    Jankoswki said he did not know anything about the
ACS’s efforts to hold the relay in South Portland until he caught sight
of a press release from Ball encouraging supporters of the Relay for
life to attend the Dec. 18 City Council meeting en masse to exhort the
council to support the event.

    Jankowski contacted Ball and told him that he would like to work with him to reexamine the issue.

    According to Relay for Life chair Jon Wojciechowski,
there is now a meeting scheduled for Jan. 2 with city officials and
Relay for Life representative to discuss holding the event in South
Portland. Jankowski said the impact and logistics of the event would
need to be thoroughly examined before any final decision could be made
about whether it will go forward.

    “This is the kind of event we love to support,” said Jankowski last Tuesday.