“South Portland is a magical place,” Zoo Cain, the co-owner of Three Ring Circus Gallery, told me this week. “There’s really just something about it.”  
    As I’ve covered the South Portland beat for the Sentry over the last several months, I’ve heard that sentiment expressed often, and from all kinds of people. The city may get overshadowed by its bigger neighbor, but it’s a place with a character all of its own.
    The best way to get acquainted with the character of such a place is to write thousands of words about it every week and interview dozens of its residents, which has more or less been my job description at the Sentry. I’ll be moving on this week, finishing up my time with the Sentry, and I’m going to miss getting the chance to do that every week. To supply our weekly interview feature I’ve had the chance to pick out one noteworthy person in the community every week and spend an hour or so chatting with them, and I’ve been continually amazed at the endless supply of interesting people to choose from.  
    One of the first interviews I did was with Ernest “Jim” Darling, the former South Portland police chief who was celebrating his 95th birthday. He was a good person to learn about South Portland’s history from—he told me what it was like to walk the Ferry Village beat during WWII when the city was filled with raucous sailors and a busy shipyard.  As he described it, South Portland was a pretty rough and tumble place in those days.
    Over the last months I’ve interviewed a number of people who shared with me their expertise in a variety of fields I previously knew little about. Mark Eyerman, the president of Planning Decisions, educated me about land use planning and talked about his work with the city to update its zoning ordinance.  Rich Jordan, a wetland scientist also contracted out by the city, told me more than I could ever absorb about wetland mitigation, which I learned is an incredibly complex process. I had always been skeptical of wetland mitigation—it seemed to me like we should just leave wetlands alone instead of trying to mitigate their destruction, but I was happy to get the impression that Rich seemed motivated to serve the best interest of the wetland’s ecological health, and not simply make development easier.   
    I learned a lot about the ecology of Casco Bay from interviews with two different employees of Friends of Casco Bay—Baykeeper Joe Payne, and Mary Cerullo, who also writes childrens books about marine science. I don’t think many people realize the important role that FOCB serves as environmental stewards of the bay. They’re a great resource to have here in the city and very friendly people.
    It’s been fun getting to know the political players of the area too, from Cumberland County Manager Peter Crichton, who can’t emphasize enough how much of a burden the county’s poorly funded jails are on taxpayers, to South Portland Mayor Claude Morgan, who has a knack for speaking about any subject with great rhetorical flourish and eclectic figures of speech.
    After the city council spent many months deliberating on which candidate for city manager to select, I was pleased at the opportunity to interview Ted Jankowski once he finally got the position.  I left the interview thinking that the city would be in good hands with his leadership and experience.  Morgan told me that the average tenure of a city manager in New England lasts around two and a half years. Hopefully Jankowski will stick around a little longer.
    Some of my favorite interviews were with residents of South Portland who are quietly working away in their homes at amazingly creative projects. Topper and Cornelia Carew, who run Urban Neo Productions out of their home, told me about all the films they are busy producing and Topper talked about what it was like to direct and produce movies with stars like Mr. T and Martin Lawrence. Jeff Badger allowed me to visit his studio and enter the world of his paintings inhabited by characters like a disembodied brain and a monocle-wearing robber baron.
    Tom Blake, who I interviewed after he won the Sentry’s Great Person Award, seems to be the perfect role model of an active and engaged citizen. His leadership at the land trust has really revived the group and is a big reason why the Sawyer Marsh deal was successfully struck and why the land trust’s West End Trails Committee has had so much success.
    South Portland’s reputation tends to get shaped by the Maine Mall, the traffic congestion throughout the city and the tendency to think of the city as just a suburb of Portland. But South Portland has the potential to become better known for its more appealing and distinct qualities.  Along with covering the South Portland beat for the Sentry, for the last several months I’ve also been reporting on Scarborough for the Scarborough Leader, which is owned by the same Biddeford-based company. Two things I’ve learned through getting to know the politics, geography and people of each community is that I never want to live in Scarborough and that I would greatly enjoy living in South Portland. So Po, at least in most parts of the city, has what is most important in a place to live—a strong sense of community and a unique sense of place.  Like Zoo said, it’s a magical place.