Greetings and happy Friday! Another busy week that had both Suzan and I juggling quite a few balls, but it was also pretty exciting – lots of progress on multiple fronts.

Here’s our update for this week –

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Suzan’s week:

* Daily/ weekly routine tasks
* Cut checks, mailed
* Deposited checks, posted in QB
* Searched for electronic bylaws, copied, sent to PS
* Contacted bank, set up electronic users for approval
* Searched for board application
* Looked for room tax deposit
* Met w/Tracy for check signing
* Sent PS’s business cards for printing
* Reviewed MailChimp
* FDIC data sheet

 

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Paul’s week:

Meet and Greets – Had some great meetings this week with Seth Sherry, the economic developer for the city of Albany and also Kate Porsche, economic developer for Corvallis and Benton County. Both sound like they will be great resources and sounding boards. I’m getting meetings scheduled with local Mayers (plus managers and other key folks) – I’ve got Lincoln City, Newport and Yachats already scheduled, and more in the “find a date and time that works” stage. Next week, I’ll also be meeting with Karl Mundorff of OSU’s Advantage Accelerator.

Logo – I received the finalized version of our new logo, plus all the various graphical files (print resolution, monochrome, against a transparent background, etc.). Designer Sherry and I also put together a Brand Guidelines document for proper color and font matching and such (it’s attached to this email).

Our New Website – I’m continuing work on the new website, fleshing out the page content. I also spent an afternoon researching “best practices” economic development websites to make sure we’re standing with the cream of the crop. I hope to be close, by the end of next week, for some initial reviews and typo hunting.

Initial Attraction Marketing – I also started to put together the scaffolding of a digital attraction marketing plan, centered around discoverability, driving traffic to the new site and triggering a call to action. We have multiple “audiences” (potential local business members, remote workers, lifestyle entrepreneurs, “standard” entrepreneurs and businesses to attract), but I think out of the gates, we pick one for a small-scale test digital marketing campaign, to evaluate the efficacy of our initial approaches.

Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy – With some strong suggestions from other regional economic developers, I’ve stepped up to get more involved (rather than as a passive observer and information gatherer) with the efforts to update the required regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy that the Cascades West Council of Governments is leading (working with a team of graduate students from the University of Oregon). We had our second “working” meeting this week that focused on a regional SWOT analysis, overarching plan goals (which need some serious work) and project templates. My push is for clear goals, simple and flexible project descriptions that push towards implementation and also having the plan dovetail with local and smaller regional planning efforts. I also heard a little “friction” that I’m sure has been out there for a while: “Why is there so much emphasis on the maritime economy?” from a non-coastal voice.

Lincoln County Strategic Planning (inputs on priorities) – Greg Wolf (Association of Oregon Counties) and I had another meeting this week to discuss approaches to Lincoln County stakeholder priority setting and visioning as it relates to future economic development efforts – we are mostly talking about the best virtual approach to receive meaningful input. We’re wrapping up our second draft of a plan to that end. The next step will be a Zoom meeting with Greg, myself and Commissioner Hunt (Doug – look for a scheduling email early next week) to really dial in the approach.

Commercial Landlord Project – Remember that? We were in a holding pattern for a few weeks as we waited on commercial landlord contact information from various sources – and we received the first “mega” list from the county this week. Suzan and I will be cleaning up that data next week to get to Dave at the SBDC so he can merge into a single postcard which will explain the project and guide landlords to the online survey.

Lincoln County and Phase 2 – This isn’t probably “new” news, but passing along if you missed it – yesterday, the County Commissioners received a response from the Governor’s Office on their application to move to Phase 2 on August 24 – this is an excerpt from the response:

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We received your application request to enter Phase 2 for reopening and have been in discussions with you about a mutually agreed upon date on September 8, 2020. We have been carefully monitoring your case trends and over the last two weeks there has been an increase in positivity, slightly higher than the criteria to enter Phase 2. However, we anticipate that your county will stabilize and will be able to enter Phase 2 by the target date of September 8, 2020, if you continue to test, track and isolate new cases of COVID-19. This work will make it possible for you to move to the next phase.
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In the Wednesday SBDC COVID call, Commissioner Hunt predicted this response, but the near-horizon anticipated Phase 2 date isn’t that far down the pike at all. It also highlights the great work being done by our county organizations and our local health system. We’re getting there.

On Thursday, Susan and I grabbed an end-of-day Member slot for the outdoor exhibits at the Aquarium – it was Susan’s first time there and my first time since you interviewed me in front of a wall of sharks. Holy cow, what wonderful and knowledgable staff!! Also those sea otters – come on – there ought to be a law about being so adorable! And we were lucky enough to catch a feeding in the aviary. We learned a ton and walked away simply amazed that this wonderful asset is in our region. Can’t wait until they fully open up – we’ll be back in a heartbeat!

Have a great weekend, stay safe and wear those masks!

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂