Greetings and welcome to Friday! Looks like a hot and humid weekend and upcoming week!
Last Saturday was a gorgeous and very well attended Art, Oysters & Brews event. Sarah worked setup and engaged the attendees with stickers, huge bubbles and video recording throughout the day. She also videoed the Michael Gibbons mural dedication (I was trapped dealing with an overly needy musician setting up at the time). I set up the sound, assisted the musicians and helped with tear-down. It’s so great seeing tons of folks come to this event from out of town!
Here’s our staff update for the week:
Blue Economy::
Today, I pulled together a first-pass at an outcome-based Blue Economy plan of work for the fiscal year, focusing on CDS project work and also desired next steps on the other side of our CDS award. I also met with Sherry DeLeon about potential grant opportunities to support future Blue Economy projects. – Paul
Broadband::
This week, I made a number of initial ISP connections (with help from Solarity). Next week, we’ll circle back with some meetings to discuss possible BEAD-funded infrastructure projects. All also be meeting with Solarity directly and Anne Whittington (of the COG) on grant writing support for a first-round local BEAD application. – Paul
Creative Economies::
For ART Toledo this week, I began to create the promotional video from the August 5th Art, Oysters & Brews event and the Michael Gibbons mural dedication. I also updated the Art Toledo website, the chalk the block registration form, and sent out a MailChimp newsletter for the Chalk the Block event happening on Main Street in Toledo next Saturday the 19th! – Sarah
Housing::
This week, Sarah stepped up and attended the PIER (Planning, Infrastructure and Economic Revitalization) selection team meeting in my stead (I had to race north to Newport for a meeting). It’s a program run by ReOregon to administer grant funds to counties for recovery programs relating to the 2020 wild fires. The meeting was to get the ball rolling on the Lincoln County grant solicitation and scoring process ($2.6 million will be available locally). It sounds like there were more questions than answers, but the process should be coming into focus soon. – Paul
Project Work::
This week I continued to work on the major employers report and began to put together the board meeting minutes from the meeting last week. I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs section on the EDALC website with the fall Oregon Coast SBDC courses, read the Kauffman foundation’s “Measuring an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” report and looked into different data sources from that report. I also attended the Planning, Infrastructure, and Economic Revitalization Program (PIER) selection committee meeting Tuesday morning. Lastly, I updated Oregon Prospector entries and looked into an RFP for a manufacturing plant site Business Oregon sent out. – Sarah
Rural Opportunity Initiative::
I sent off our final package of ROI invoices and receipts this week (Jan 2022 – June 2023) to Business Oregon. I also started pulling together a preliminary list of potential ROI projects for our next go-round. – Paul
Supporting Our Partners::
Central Coast Food Web – Thursday morning I attended a board meeting at the Yaquina Lab for the Central Coast Food Web and was voted onto their board of directors! I am excited to be part of the organization and to learn more about food systems and the fishing industry. – Sarah
Newport – A while back, Sarah created the “bones” of a business user survey for the airport. This week, I edited and refined the questions based on a meeting we had at City Hall, as well as put together an introductory “context” page. We sent that out to stakeholders for feedback mid-week – my guess is that we’ll launch it fully next week. – Paul
OCCC – This week, I attended an initial Board of Education training for OCCC (that’s what I had to race north for on Wednesday!) – it was awesome to learn just how much work goes on behind the scenes at OCCC to deliver meaningful student success. – Paul
Upcoming::
On Tuesday afternoon we brainstormed and vetted some solid ideas for our next Lincoln County Economic Summit. Afterwards, Sarah reached out to some potential event spaces and requested some information and quotes from them. – Sarah & Paul
I’ll be meeting with local and regional folks on Monday afternoon in Newport in a third follow-up meeting on a potential new hotel project. – Paul
Also, next week, we’ll be wrapping up and sending out our August newsletter – let us know if you’d like to see anything specific in there!
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 🙂