Hello and Happy Friday! It’s also Friday the 13th, so proceed with caution – don’t walk under ladders, let a black cat cross your path or break a mirror. Both Fridays and the number 13 have been unlucky over the centuries, but the combination really started with the publication of the novel “Friday, the Thirteenth” in 1907. And then, of course, there’s the bad goings on at Camp Crystal Lake, from the original 1980 move, “Friday the 13th”. 

 

Thanks to our Directors who joined us last night for Fail Fest at Primaltones. It was a packed house with a ton of new folks. Stacie did an amazing job as lead event planner, Sarah crafted the amazing food spread (with local delights from Pacific Sourdough, Local Ocean, the South Beach Fish Market and Chubby Lil Mermaid) and Leslie worked the door and the crowd. Patrick Alexander was the emcee (how’d he do, Jason?). Thanks to our event sponsors: Business Oregon’s Rural Opportunity Initiative program and the Georgia-Pacific Toledo Mill.

 

Also, it looks like we’ve finally survived conference season – this year was a busy one, with hundreds of miles put on the team’s vehicles. We learned a lot and still have much to process, but the whole team is looking forward to some long-overdue work in the office through the end of the year.

 

Here’s our team update for the week:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
  • Central Coast Food Web – Sarah met with Kristen Penner, a fellow CCFW board member, about a new grant for the organization and industrial land development opportunities for marine related zoned properties. 
  • Blue Economy/O2IH
  • DEQ grant – Paul and mark Farley worked on a draft application to the DEQ food waste grant program. After much research, fact-finding and a few calls with Don Gerhart of Challenger Biosciences, we determined that we just don’t have the local foundations in place to support a commptetive application. The problem is real, and the opportunity for true industrial symbiosis is equally realy, but some feasibility and prep work need to be done before we can go after competitive grants like this.
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Fail Fest – Event prep, speaker management, media management, supply procurement, and the event itself took up a big chunk of the team’s time this week. 
  • Boot Camp + Pitch Competition – Stacie reviewed the project plan, met with the team, and scheduled the next check-in for 12/16. (ROI project)
      • Samaritan Commercial Kitchen Market Plan – Sarah and Stacie met with CHE coordinator Amy and Samaritan Health marketing coordinator Jazmin Friday afternoon. (ROI project)
  • Broadband
      • BAT – Paul attended this month’s LBLL Broadband Action Team meeting. All in all, $77.4 million dollars in BEAD infrastructure funding have flowed into our four county region. Comcast and Starlink still haven’t signed their contracts, and that affects just under 500 BSL locations in Lincoln County (they do have a signing extension through next week). Governor Kotek’s prelim work on slowing down data center construction has frozen 25 broadband right of way permits, some of which affect Lincoln County. In a recently-released Water Policy and Innovation Service report (Portland State University), it seems as if many of the current Oregon fears around data centers are largely unfounded (causing electric rates to rise, pumping out contaminated water, using too much water) – you can read more here: https://www.oregon.gov/energy/Get-Involved/Documents/2026-03-27-Data-Centers-and-Water-Dialogue-Draft.pdf
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Economic Summit – Sarah went forward with reserving the location for the 2027 Summit with the team’s blessing. Sarah had previously reached out to several local event spaces and requested quotes, and after reviewing the quotes and services at each, decided that remaining at Spyglass would be the best option this year. 
  • Major Employers Report – Sarah wrapped up this project for the year, she sent the results to Shaun Barrick with the Oregon Employment Department and put it on the EDALC website, the results are linked here. 
  • ComEcDev grant program
  • CommEcDev grant – Stacie sent application confirmation emails. Paul and Sarah fielded inquiries from potential applicants.
  • Community Connecting
  • Strategic Doing Training in Redmond, OR – Cape Perpetua Collaborative Executive Director Talaina King,  Trailkeepers of Oregon Noelle Windesheim and Leslie attended this two day training to bolster the CPC network’s familiarity and application of Strategic Doing in 2027 and beyond. This training prepared the trio to support CPC’s Annual Partner meeting, and the collaborative projects CPC partners will co-develop there, alongside Aniko in January 2027. 
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication – Stacie managed social media.

 

That’s it for this week – thanks for ALL that you are doing out there. Keep us posted if you have anything you want us to share – we love hearing from you! Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

-The EDALC Team (Paul, Sarah, Leslie and Stacie)