Greetings and welcome to Friday! How are we already at July 24th?!?!

 

Paul here – Susan and I survived some angry air travel gods to get to Basel, Switzerland, but we had an amazing time cruising the Rhine River from Switzerland to Amsterdam with our friends Jim and Ann (from Madison, Wisconsin) and then hanging out in Amsterdam for three days. Greg – I owe you a full play-by-play of the Viking River Cruise experience!

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support
      • Art, Oysters & Brews 8/1, 8/2 12-5pm on Main Street in Toledo – Sarah and Stacie met with Toledo Public Works to coordinate tasks for AOB next weekend, and spent some time on Main St. measuring event areas to confirm that the layout will work. Sarah helped some vendors get registered, made the layout/map, confirmed event logistics like garbage and bathrooms, and put more posters up in Corvallis. Stacie began designing the public-facing map, and recruited/coordinated volunteers. $10 Timbers vouchers are available for anyone who wants to help out! Paul coordinated with the bands to lock everything in, including how to get the Ludicrous Speed Ska Revue’s 22 sound inputs into EDALC’s 12 channel sound board!
      • Lincoln City – Paul met with the ICF team (the consultants brought in by the EPA) in Lincoln City for two meetings this morning – first focusing on economic development (Business Oregon was also at the meeting in force) and then talking workforce, as part of their planning for the 23rd street industrial development project.
  • Broadband
  • BAT – Paul participated in the July Broadband Action Team meeting. The final rejected BEAD projects were picked up by six previously-approved ISPs – one of those being Amazon’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, which will serve over 5,000 locations in Oregon (the Amazon LEO service is about a year behind Starlink). There was also some worrisome news that ODOT does not consider fiber as a “utility” and might require ISPs to pay an annual $1/foot fee to exist on ODOT right-of-way. If this holds, it could scuttle most of the BEAD projects, since those fees were not factored into the proposals. We’ll keep our eye on this one.
  • Economic Mobility
      • Leslie continued working and meeting with City of Newport’s Gia and Allyson on Latine Business Support training logistics and Workforce Development Co-Design projects.
  • Entrepreneurship
      • CWIH – Paul met with Matt Sayre, Executive Director of CEDO, the Lane County regional lead in the Cascades West Innovation Hub. They discussed some IH contract changes they received, which EDALC has not (yet?) received. Those changes, if they hold, could make IH work more purely performative than focusing on what’s best for our region’s innovative companies.
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Community and Economic Development Grant – The team had a preliminary conversation about the 2026-27 cycle during Wednesday’s team meeting. Stacie created a new project plan in Monday.com, and has begun reviewing feedback from the previous cycle. The team will have recommendations for updates to the rubric, timeline, and grant allocations prepared for the September EDALC Board of Directors meeting with the goal of opening the grant by September 18th which would be 3 weeks earlier than last year.
  • Major Employers Report – Sarah continued reaching out to businesses for their employee count. 
  • Oregon Prospector – Sarah updated Oregon Prospector listings.
  • Community Connecting
  • Cape Perpetua Collaborative (CPC) and OMSI Camp Grey Documentary Camp Filming Day – Tomorrow Leslie will carpool with Lisa Norton to continue the positive ripple effects of CPC’s “Cape Perpetua for All” initiative. What began as an overnight trip two summers ago (watch that story here) continued with another overnight trip (including the girl’s soccer team) this May, and has now evolved into two teenagers from those overnights attending OMSI’s annual Documentary Camp to film a story on CPC and its collaborative programs and partners – including CTSI and EDALC! Fingers are crossed that the film will be submitted to the Student Category for next year’s Big Blue Film Fest. Leslie looks forward to sharing the finished short film in a future update. 
  • Cultural & Creative Tourism Video with Juntos en Colaboración Partners – See the newly released 2026 Latine Mesoamerican Cultural Fest video here!
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication – Stacie finished her work on the summer newsletter with the goal of sending it out early next week pending completion of Paul’s “Letter From the Executive Director”. She also managed social media, and provided Leslie with a list of Facebook community groups to share with resource fair partners for marketing purposes.
  • Admin – Stacie coordinated a final visit from the Xerox rep and is very happy to report that the new printer is now fully functional and ready to be used once we run our old printer out of ink. She also created a new BoD folder for FY 2026-27 and moved the FY 2025-26 folder to the BoD archives folder in Google Drive

 

Just a reminder that our first Board of Directors meeting of the news fiscal year will be Thursday, August 6th at 3:30pm (via Zoom). Next week, Paul will get out a schedule of the meetings for the year to put on your calendars.

 

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 – we love hearing from you! Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

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