 South Portland has just published an updated guide to help new and existing businesses find all the information they need to get or keep their businesses running. Leslie McVane talked with Economic and Community Development Director Eric Carson about this new resource. Well Eric, you're the Community Development Director in South Portland and you've got a wonderful little business guide here that's just come out. So tell us a little bit about it and what you hope to accomplish by publishing this. Sure, the purpose of the guide is to provide as much information in one place, two businesses, both those that exist and those that are starting up. Starting a business can be daunting. There's a number of permits. You may have to go to the council to get a permit for a viturals license for instance to serve alcohol and wine or you may need to get a license from the state for a corporation. So having all of that information in one place I think will make it easier for businesses to do that. So it gives you the go-to organization or people to find out what you need to do to open a business. That's right. For instance, if someone had a little garage and they were not sure if they could have a little mom and pop antique shop, this would help them decide whether or not they're in the right zone for that. Right. It's designed to provide both the startup business and the existing business. Very often someone will want to start a business in their garage and so they'll need to get a certain kind of permit from the planning board. This lays out the process for that. It also gives the person to identify, the person to talk with in the planning department for instance or codes or the clerk's office in order to get people to get the license. Well, every time I turn around I'm hearing more, you know, every day there's something about South Portland and the innovative things they're doing. It's a really exciting city to be a part of right now. It is. And what else is happening in the business world that made this guide kind of necessary? Well, we've been looking at how the city works within the region and how we add to the region and what the region adds to us. We have had a number of people move to the city because of its verve, I guess. It's a smaller community. It has a lot of neighborhoods. People recognize that. At the same time, you have businesses located in amongst those neighborhoods. We have, I think, a lot changed for the downtown when the bridge was redesigned and developed. Having said that, it also created a more concise area now. More like a little neighborhood. That's right. So the Nightville-Mill Creek area really is a place of its own. At the same time, we are a community where most of probably 95% of the businesses are employee-five or less employees. And so we really want to grow. We have large companies like Texas Instruments and Right Express, et cetera. And the mall, but we also have a number of very small businesses. We want to grow all of those. And I think the purpose here really was to attract smaller business, to attract the growth of that smaller business, because that really is so much the backbone. And you've also had the example of Portland. All the good things and the bad things that have been done in Portland to sort of guide you as you go forward in developing your business areas. Sure, absolutely. And one of the things is this business guide is modeled very much after Portland's. And I've worked very closely with Greg Mitchell and others in Portland in terms of economic development. That's the value of working in a regional component. And I think every community has challenges in terms of how best to grow. And it's always a balancing act. And we've had situations that we've had business projects that haven't turned out. And what we try to do every time is learn from that. I think, again, the guide will help, should help businesses get a better sense of what our constraints are, what our requirements are, so that we can make the process more efficient. Right. And you do have, as you say, on the one hand, the big mall area, and on the other hand, the Willard Beach area. That's right. So you're balancing a lot there. That's right. But you seem to be doing it well. And if people want to find out more about how to get the guide or where it's available, how do they do that? They can get it either at City Hall as they come in at the clerk's office. It's also available at the library and at the community center. And they can also get it online at www.southportland.org. And is that a way they could also get listed the next time the guide comes out? Well, we're not listing businesses directly. What we're doing is providing a guide for businesses. But they certainly can get in touch with me that way. Well, thank you. This is exciting. And I look forward to looking through this wonderful little guidebook. Great. Thank you for the opportunity.