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.