Greetings and welcome to Friday and welcome to the last day in February. Today is also the nationwide consumer blackout – it’ll be interesting to see what impact that will have. The EDALC team is planning to hold back their online and big box spending today – a little pebble (out of many) in the pond.

 

As a reminder, Thursday, March 13th is our third annual Lincoln County Economic Summit (at Spyglass at the Inn at Otter Crest). Registration is open – Directors can use promo code EDALCBoard to reserve their spot for free at tinyurl.com/2025LCSummit.

 

Next Monday, the EDALC team will begin their own Oregon Trail-like experience and begin the exodus back to our Waldport offices – we needed to wait for a relatively unencumbered day for the move, which we couldn’t find this week!

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) – This week, the CEDS strategy committee met to revise the updated priority areas and the action items for the 2025-2030 update. Paul led the Business Development discussion group, and they put forward some solid suggestions that were later approved by the whole committee to better “bake in” business support, innovation and entrepreneurship into that priority area.
      • CWEDD – The CWEDD Executive Committee met this week to lock down the agenda for next week’s full economic development board meeting. The quarterly CWEDD meeting was moved a week earlier to not conflict with EDALC’s Economic Summit on March 13th.
  • Blue Economy/O2IH
  • Aquaculture – Paul was part of a Zoom this afternoon (and so was Marshall) organized by Angee Doerr (Sea-Grant and OSU Extension) to bring regional and state-wide folks together to start the conversation on how we can collaborate (rather than duplicate efforts) on aquaculture training and advocacy.
  • O2IH Website  – Stacie created brand guidelines (with team input) and provided them to contractor Shawn Livengood so that he can move forward with site development. We also finalized the new logos and met with Shawn on Friday to touch base. Next steps are to build out the site and start adding content.
      • USDA Grant – Paul worked with Rural Prosperity Partners to shore up the narrative on EDALC’s grant application, and he spent time this week pulling together all the required documentation and letters of support (Thanks to Paula for a letter from the Port!). The grant was sent off (a paper copy overnighted – how retro!) on Wednesday. The grant is for $71,500 to conduct a detailed Blue Economy survey of Lincoln and Lane counties, based on the methodology used for the north coast study (funded by EDALC). USDA confirmed receipt of the grant application this afternoon.
  • Entrepreneurship
      • Cascades West Innovation Hub (CWIH) – The official kick-off event for the CWIH was on Wednesday at Hatfield – this event was for economic ecosystem support organizations, and was coordinated by the statewide Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (with some help from EDALC). The whole team was in attendance, participating and taking notes for several of the breakout sessions. Stacie wrote and sent this month’s report for our portion of the Groundwork project. Stacie, Leslie, and Sarah met OEN’s President & Executive Director Cara Turano and Associate Executive Director Rylee O’Brien for dinner on Tuesday evening to connect before the kick-off. Paul and Stacie attended a sub-contractor check-in this afternoon.
      • Rural Opportunity Initiative – Paul had a conversation with ROI director Brian Plinski to help them refine and dial in their legislative presentation for the program next week – EDALC’s work will be featured. The team also received this from ROI today: “We are pleased to announce that you have been selected to have a professional video made about your ROI project and entrepreneurial ecosystem building work. The evaluation committee was impressed with your application and we look forward to seeing your story told through video.” That equates to about $10,000 or professional video work. Sarah and Stacie took the lead on putting together that grant application.
  • Core Economic Development Services
      • Incentives – CPACE – Paul met with a team from Berkadia (a commercial mortgage firm) to discuss the C-PACE inventive program. It’s an incentive for new construction (or large scale renovation) that allows the loan to be repaid via a special assessment on real estate taxes for the property (if certain energy efficient equipment and design is utilized). Oregon has already approved C-PACE, but individual counties need to opt in. Commissioner Hall has already been briefed on the program, and Paul will be meeting with Commissioner Miller next week. There is a management component, but that could be taken on by EDALC (who would be paid a management fee from the benefiting entities).
  • Lincoln County Economic Summit – Stacie sent out event reminders on social media, acquired centerpieces, picked up the stickers from Pacific Digital  and worked with Sarah on info packets for tabling orgs and panelists. Sarah also worked on editing the pillars of the local economy videos. She also sent the agenda and additional logistics to the speakers and resource tables, coordinated with Spyglass on the room set up, and reserved a hotel room for our Keynote speaker Marty Alvarado who is flying up from California!
      • Community & Economic Development Grant Program – Press release was finalized and sent to county PIO for approval. Also, contracts went out today from Lincoln County to the awardees.
  • Community Connecting
  • Tours and Meetups with Greg Wright of Spark Towns – During the windstorm on Monday, Leslie traveled to Florence to meet with Greg, Chantelle Meyer, Stephanie Sarles, and Jo Beaudreau to discuss the successes and challenges in Western Lane County in Economic Development, Creative Economy, Rural Community Building, and other intersectional topics. Then on Tuesday, Leslie invited Greg to join her on an Oregon Ocean Cluster & CCFW tour that included the new closed container system prototype based on the previous successes in the larger urchin, sea cucumber, and dulse system we also toured further upriver. Leslie enjoyed meeting and learning from the entrepreneurs, scientists, and many collaborators who are currently working on, and have historically worked on multiple innovative Blue Economy efforts, including, but not limited to, the following efforts: Sea Stereo, OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch, The Nines Hotel and Urban Farmer Steakhouse, Photon Marine, Ecotrust/Point 97, and many others… 
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication
  • Stacie posted Friday community roundup and shared relevant partner/regional posts on various social media channels.
  • Project Work
  • Admin
      • Stacie coordinated the catering order from Raised By Wolves Victualing Co. for next week’s BoD meeting.

 

Reminder: Our March EDALC Board of Directors meeting will be IN PERSON at the PAC (thanks Jason!) next Thursday at 3:30pm – we’ll have some tasty food (catered by the Raised by Wolves food truck) and libations and we’ll also get a bespoke tour of the new PAC renovations – you won’t want to miss this one!

 

That’s it for this week. Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Keep us posted if you have anything you want us to share, and don’t be stingy with your ideas – we love hearing from you!

 

And we realize these times are beyond crazy for many of us – let’s stick together and let’s not forget the importance of self-care and enjoying quiet moments with friends, family and a good book – and for those of us who love to escape into a good movie, here’s an awesome curated list:

 

https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2025/01/14/best-new-comfort-movies-feel-good

 

Cheers,

 

-The EDALC Team (Paul, Sarah, Leslie and Stacie)