Greetings and welcome to Friday! And welcome back to our weekly update after a one-week hiatus due to conferences, travel and such!
Here’s our update for this week:
Blue Economy::
This week, I attended an AK, OR and WA meeting convened by Washington’s Maritime Blue to explore coordinating a phase 2 NOAA Climate-Resilience Accelerator application across all three states. It seems like that could be a great way to secure the $15 million grant award (over 4 years). If awarded, 40% of those funds would need to go out as non-diluted technology and innovation grants in the blue sector.
We also had a full team meeting with Ben Shorofsky, who is helping the Oregon Cluster Initiative (OCVA’s “Keeping Local Seafood Local”) do some strategic planning. We were both basically info-dumping on what we were doing to set the stage for future collaborations. – Paul
Broadband::
This week, Solarity submitted a Broadband Deployment Program infrastructure grant for Pioneer Communications to provide additional underserved Internet access to households in Lincoln and Benton counties (the last work deliverable from the EDA broadband feasibility grant). We wrapped up our letter of support work to help them submit the strongest application possible. I also reached out to our federal delegation to urge action on the Affordable Connectivity Program, which is due to shut down in May, affecting over 200,000 Oregonians. – Paul
Community Connecting::
Leslie is back this week from a multi-state conference, community and family tour and has SO much to share. Here’s the (always interesting and informative) link to Leslie’s full report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gFoJD6E8eIEs7b4bTtF4wt-nAmzqB2HH0A121qIilZY/edit?usp=sharing
Creative Economies::
Made small edits to the AOB save the date that I created last week – Stacie
I updated the ART Toledo website and sent out a Save the Date newsletter to a bunch of artists for the Art, Oysters & Brews event this summer, it will be one weekend on August 3rd and 4th! – Sarah
Enterprise Zone::
This week, we held our annual EZ update meeting with the county assessor’s office. Also, EZ exemptions for Rogue (3 active) were processed and submitted to the state. Dahl Disposal was late on their filing, but paid the fine and got their exemption in as well. – Paul
Events::
I sent some marketing materials to the Bloom Newport team and dropped off a print for their raffle! Leslie and I will be hosting a table there on May 18th! I also worked on some YEP Pitch event planning. – Sarah
Marketing & Communication::
Social media wins: SBDC/OCCC helping promote YEP pitch event (with some prompting from Sarah), OCVA/OOCI acknowledged EDALC funding for the seafood butchery program on LI, FB, and IG, and we had some excellent R2R content from Paul and Leslie. It’s a team effort! – Stacie
We sent out our spring newsletter last Wednesday! I am also still working on some EDALC promo video ideas for our videos with Richard Wright and the SBDC. – Sarah
Organizational Development::
Every day was Monday(.com). Made good progress on our board template, added some columns per team feedback, and am continuing to explore functionality to figure out the best initial setup for us. Will have examples built out + documentation ready to provide demo to team on 5/10. Also hoping to have a dashboard example built out as well. – Stacie
Attended OEDA Webinar What You Need to Know About the Oregon Legislature: A Primer for Advocates on Thursday – Stacie and Sarah
Project Work::
I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider, the community connector webpage, and the copyright on the EDALC website. I also did some preliminary research on a potential project looking at the local economic impact of state and federal contracts and added about twenty new listings to Oregon Prospector! – Sarah
Regards to Rural Conference::
Leslie and I attended the 2024 Regards to Rural conference (held every two years) in Kenewick, WA last weekend. It’s a high-energy (and somewhat exhausting!) conference that really emphasizes connecting, collaborating and networking. Both Leslie and I need a calm weekend to fully process the amazing takeaways! Also, more info in Leslie’s report (above). – Paul
Supporting Partners::
City of Newport – Last Wednesday, Carrie and I sat on the community leaders panel (Paula was also on the public administrator panel) to interview the four finalists for the Newport City Manager position. All were quite qualified for the job, but the Newport City Council selected former Gresham City Manager Nina Vetter as Spencer Nebel’s replacement (to start July 8th) – and she was far-and-away all of our first choice for the position. – what a rock star! – Paul
CWEDD – This week, we had our CWEDD Executive Committee meeting to set the full economic development district board meeting (in May) agenda and review the proposed scope of work for the 2025-2030 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy update, which kicks off this summer. – Paul
Upcoming::
Next Thursday is our May EDALC Board of Directors meeting – here is the Zoom link:
Topic: May EDALC Board of Directors meeting
Time: May 2, 2024 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09&omn=88561300760
Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK
Also, save the date for the evening of June 27th for the co EDALC/YBEF annual meeting and celebration.
On May 8th is the Coastal Caucus’ Oregon Coast Economic Summit at Chinook Winds (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oregon-coast-economic-summit-tickets-882669878367). I’ll be one of the morning speakers at the event – looking forward to it!
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂