The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com. Phil: For our penultimate column before Election Day, I thought it might be good to provide our final takes on the most important race in Maine in the last two decades. Ethan: Portland’s Council District 5 race between Kate Sykes, Mark Dion and Jon Coyne? Phil: You do know there is life on earth outside Portland, right?