Happy Friday, and welcome to Friday the 13th!  Avoid the black cats and ladders today! But what a gorgeous, sunny, cool and crisp almost-Fall day! Here’s the weekly staff update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • CWEDD – Paul traveled to Albany on Thursday to chair the quarterly board meeting for the Cascades West Economic Development District. There were about 35 folks participating in the hybrid meeting. Topics included the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy update project and housing infrastructure funding via HB3395.
      • OCCC – In Wednesday’s OCCC Board of Education public meeting, the board voted to authorize Chair Emery and Chris Chandler (with support from HR) to enter into contract negotiations with a presidential finalist.
  • Reinventing Rural – Stacie promoted Waldport CO.STARTERS on LI, IG, and FB
  • Blue Economy/O2IH
      • Tillamook Bay – Early in the week, Paul and Sarah met with Ben Gates, owner of Urban Patterns, to discuss a potential aquaculture & seafood hub on Tillamook Bay. The project includes activating an existing dock for commercial fisherman, improvements to a former oyster-processing facility to expand seafood processing in a commercial kitchen, and retail and wholesale activities. 
      • Project Planning – Tuesday morning, Paul and Sarah met with Mark Farley to talk through budgeting and activities for the final year of EDALC’s congressionally-directed spending award. Paul also met with Rural Prosperity Partners to talk grant prospecting. Paul and Mark met with the OCCC’s Dan Lara to talk about ramping up a DACUM process for maritime certifications.
  • Entrepreneurship
  • FailFest
        • Sarah and Stacie worked on marketing for the event (Punch Bowl invite, Facebook event and community outreach). Stacie emailed two potential speakers to gauge interest. Team reviewed the event plan during the team meeting and will be scheduling a site visit in the coming weeks.
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Community and Economic Development Grant 
        • Paul and Sarah met with Commissioner Jacobson and Ken Lipp on Monday to finalize some details and get ready to launch the community and economic development grant. Sarah began working on a press release for the grant program and Paul created the application in the county’s new online form system. 
  • Community Connecting

Abrazando Comunidades

This Wednesday in Lincoln City, Laura Isiordia and her Ford Family Foundation network brought this leadership training back to the Conexión Fenix network. Leslie brought along Gia Jensen, bilingual communications lead for the City of Newport, with her to introduce Gia to Laura Isiordia, Brenda Mendoza, the Conexión Fénix leaders, volunteers, and community regulars of Tacíta de Cafés, walking groups, and all the other programs Maria Eliosa and her team leads. Beatriz Botello and her OSU Extension SNAP Ed interns, Kim (studying pre-med at OSU) and Flor (studying nursing at OCCC) joined as well. Leader Pepe Moscoso guided the group in activities defining “a leader,” creatively solving community challenges, and listing and sharing everyone’s individual attributes and deficiencies to understand that finding a balance within each person’s life and connections in the community are the foundations to create the changes folks envision in their community. Leslie was grateful to be a part of the experience (all in Spanish) to listen and learn from the strength and wisdom of many families gathered there.

  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication
  • Stacie completed Friday community roundup, and continued to chip away at the website update to-do list.
  • Project Work
  • Major Employers – Sarah continued to call and email local businesses for their employment numbers (only two businesses left!). 
        • Economic Vitality Report Card & Oregon by the Numbers – Sarah did some additional research on rental and housing affordability and income data for the county. This week The Ford Family Foundation’s 2024 Oregon by the Numbers report was released, so Sarah started looking into some of the stand out data points and additional ALICE data.
  • Admin
  • Team meeting – This week was EDALC’s bi-weekly staff meeting, held in our offices. It’s a great opportunity for the team to come together and share what everybody is working on and to plan upcoming work. October and November are going to be very busy indeed!

 

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! 

 

Cheers,

 

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