Greetings and welcome to a frosty Friday! Just a little over a week until Christmas… can you believe it? Is everyone prepped? OCCC is shut down for the next two weeks for the holiday break… so we’ll be working remotely next next week.
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Blue Economy/O2IH::
This week was the bi-weekly advisory team update for the blue sector survey. We learned that first-pass interviews are completed and they are still waiting on some written surveys to come back in. The initial finding draft report will go out to the team in the week before New Years. We did get to experience a fairly heated discussion between Business Oregon folks on the priority deliverables for this project work. – Paul
On Monday, I read the “Economic Development Strategies for Marine Related Industries” report. – Sarah
Broadband::
This week was the December Broadband Action Team meeting for Benton, Lane, Lincoln and Linn counties. We heard updates from Solarity on Linn, Benton and Lincoln broadband planning and also the same efforts underway in Lane county. We learned of some challenges with the new FCC broadband maps that were released a few weeks ago. Lane managed to access the FCC’s raw data and run it against county GIS address data and found almost 50% of the addresses didn’t line up, even using an address-matching algorithm developed over decades. When mapping visually, though, about 90% of the miss-matched data pointed to the same residences, so additional research needs to be done to find out how the address data can be SO different. Lincoln County got some high fives for being the only county in our region (so far) to get information about Faster Internet Oregon into every household, thanks to the latest LCSD Compass newsletter (woo hoo!). The other counties wanted digital links to the newsletter to show their stakeholders how to get the word out. – Paul
Business Development::
I did some research and reach outs trying to help the Thirsty Fisherman in Toledo (a new coffee shop across from Dairy Queen that is trying to get a water line run to their business after a change in regulations no longer will allow them to use their well water) find matching funds for their project and a potential Business Oregon grant. We also reached out to Toledo public works to see if they’d be willing to do a Community and Economic Development grant application in support of the project, but we learned it was against their policy to offer support to a single business entity in a context like this. We’ll get back at it after the holidays. – Paul
Communication/Marketing::
I worked on the holiday newsletter on Monday and Tuesday, and it was sent out Thursday morning. I created a couple ads for the Waldport Tide Book on Tuesday. I posted the Holiday newsletter on Facebook on Thursday and our holiday office closure on Friday. I began working on an Economic summit highlight video on Thursday and Friday. – Sarah
Community Connecting::
CTSI’s Third Annual Harm Reduction Conference: You Be You; Let Me Be Me – I couldn’t have asked for a better re-entry into “real life” after last week’s vacation. The Annual Harm Reduction Conferences from CTSI Culture, Community Health, and Diabetes Departments are always a gift to the community. Kudos to the organizers, presenters, and participants for making this year’s 3-day experience so wonderful.
Foundations for a Better Oregon (FBO) Design Team Meeting – The homework for our design session yesterday asked our team members to share and analyze patterns, themes, pitfalls, and limiting factors of collaborative systems change efforts. Every time I get to share an FBO meeting with Janel Ruehl (previous Vision Program Coordinator for Sisters), I feel reconnected with an organized, concise, balancing counterpart that otherwise shares a similar mindset on the nuances of community building experiences.
– Leslie
Here’s the link to Leslie’s full report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1piPxpeD7jnrMuhmDpxs_JEqmdqswgAOdka8tRHUKPcg/edit?usp=sharing
Community and Economic Development Grant::
Tuesday at 5pm was the grant deadline, and submissions came in right up to the end (the final submission was submitted with six minutes to spare!). We had basically the same number of submissions as in the last two years: 12 into the regular grant pool and one larger housing grant. Remember, this is the first year that awardees from last year cannot apply (you can’t get funding two years in a row), so it’s a pretty solid showing. I’ll be pulling down the applications and budgets and getting the applications and scoresheets off to the board early next week. As a reminder, our EDALC grant review board meeting will be February 2nd. I’m working with Administrator Johnson to get on the BoC agenda with our recommendations in a February meeting. – Paul
I created and sent out a MailChimp newsletter and posted a Facebook post about the grant deadline on Monday. – Sarah
Creative Economies::
I updated the phantom gallery deadline and application details on the ART Toledo website. – Sarah
Organizational Development::
On Wednesday, I attended this month’s Leadership Lincoln class. – Sarah
Project Work::
On Monday and Thursday I researched potential properties for a woman looking to start a dog park and reached out to a couple locations she was asking about. On Tuesday and Thursday, I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider. On Tuesday and Friday I updated Oregon Prospector entries. I added the Holiday newsletter to the EDALC website and updated the grants page. On Thursday and Friday, I updated the average rent for commercial buildings in Lincoln County report. – Sarah
Side note from Sarah: I have recently joined the board of directors of Strengthening Rural Families! They are a nonprofit organization that promotes health and wellness of individuals and families in rural communities. They serve Benton and Linn Counties with programs and do coalition work with Lincoln County! Their office is in my hometown of Philomath, and I’ve seen the wonderful work they have done and am hoping to help expand their efforts into our local communities. If you are interested in learning more about them here is their website: https://www.ruralfamilies.org/
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 🙂