Greetings and welcome to Friday!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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O2IH EDA Build Back Better – First, let’s rip off the bandage. Some of you have certainly heard this, but earlier this week, the EDA announced the recipients of the Build Back Better Phase 1 funding and our O2IH proposal was not one of the recipients. Ugh! We’ve talked with our regional EDA representatives and they were stunned that O2IH wasn’t awarded – only one award was given in the entire state of Oregon and that was for a Portland-based mass timber cluster (certainly a worthy project).
I’ll let Mark Farley’s erudite words summarize (from the email he sent out to the partners):
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This news is of course very disappointing, but is not the first set-back we’ve had in our efforts to develop Oregon’s Blue Sector. When I push my disappointment aside, I am astounded at the work we’ve all done in such a short time to articulate our partnerships, tighten our regional ties, identify opportunities to grow the coastal sector, and come together as a team of focused leaders who enjoy working with each other. I feel lucky to be part of such a bold effort.
While the weight of disappointment is forward in our minds, none of us want to lose the momentum we’ve created. We were poised to take the next step on a number of fronts and we did some nice work to prepare to take those steps. After the holidays, let’s reconvene and strategize how we move forward.
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I did attend an EDA debrief webinar this morning for the applicants that didn’t get awards in Phase One (529 applications and only 60 awards) and I came away feeling that we did some solid work, but I can see perhaps two scoring areas where we might not have been as strong as was needed. The Q&A chat window during the webinar was very interesting – SO many bitterly disappointed (and frankly angry) folks! The EDA did admit that their scoring rubric for this program appeared to favor urban applications over rural.
We still have our congressionally-directed funding for $1M for O2IH out there and an update from Courtney Flathers from Senator Merkley’s office indicates that that funding may come through in February 2022.
I allowed myself a day of being grumpy and then brushed myself off and got back on the horse and I put together a concise two-page summary of the O2IH coalition to better explain our efforts to the “uninitiated” (it’s flashy and info-rich).
Planning Retreat – As I mentioned last week, my “output” of my partial-day planning retreat is a mind-map that outlines our anticipated efforts in 2022 (the calendar year, not the fiscal year). I’m attaching the PDF of that map to this email so you can see where my brain is going. I’m working on pulling some of this into a calendar-based tool and will also need to prioritize and drill down on a number of the indicated projects areas – so not done yet, but wanted to share with the board.
Rural Opportunity Initiative – I heard back from Brian Plinski, the head of the ROI program, and we should see our ROI contract next week or before the end of the year at the latest, with a 50% funding disbursement in the month of January. Once I have the contract signed, I’ll reconvene our partners and get that project ball rolling.
Community and Economic Development Grant – On Wednesday, I presented our Board’s grant scores for the applications received this year, as well as our thoughts and comments on the process, the quality of the applications, the workshop and the larger grant effort. The Commissioners seemed very pleased with this year’s program and the consensus seems to be to attempt a similar two-pot program next year, but with perhaps some tweaks to the application and evaluation process for the larger grants.
Social Services Grant Program – I spent another 90 minutes this week with Amy Carlson. She is being engaged by the county to “dial in” and maximize the impact of the Social Services Grant program (and I’m guessing probably trying to assess improving the impact of other programs, like the ComEcDev grant program – but that’s just my educated guess). We had some great conversations on how to educate, inform and amp up the impact, not only for applying non-profits, but the local impact of the programs as well – certainly time well spent.
Lincoln City – I trekked up to the Explore Lincoln City offices yesterday to meet with Ed Dreistadt and Scott Humpert. The have finally sent their Lincoln City “sizzle sheet” (the one I helped them write a while back) and a guide to starting a business in Lincoln City off to the printers. They have funds available to do some advertising in the Portland Business Journal for business attraction. We discussed how to focus the ad (who is the audience?) and how we can assist them in putting together an action plan once they pull in some leads (I saw this as a need they had – I guess they saw it too) – it’ll probably end up being a portion of our ROI work with Lincoln City.
FY2022-23 Funding – I had a meeting with Rod Cross about Toledo EDALC funding and it sounds like they are groovy with a $2 per capita funding level for FY2022-23. I’ll get with Judy Richter right after the holidays to get on their council calendar, and he said they’d be sure to get it in their budget. Excellent!
Broadband Action Team – Yesterday was our monthly regional Broadband Action Team meeting. There was some discussion on the efforts of CWEDD (our economic development district) to take over administration of the EDA broadband feasibility grant from Lincoln County. The other items of note were coordinating efforts statewide to get some BAT representation on the Oregon Broadband Office’s rule making team (they anticipate $500M in ARPA and other funding coming into OR for broadband development) – since the BATs are overwhelmingly rural in nature. Also looking at a regional focus to bring grant and public sector dollars into middle-mile deployment to make the last-mile connections easier for the ISPs.
Holiday Newsletter – I’ll be sending out our holiday newsletter early next week (goal: Monday afternoon). Let me know ASAP if you’d like me to add something to the newsletter.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂