Greetings! So Labor Day weekend is upon us and we’ve got some damp campers out there! Once we slide into next week, the tourists will begin to dwindle and a Thursday left turn on 101 won’t earn as many nasty stares.

 

Thanks to all who attended our September Board of Directors meeting yesterday – awesome attendance and great, lively discussions. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and insights with the team!

 

Here’s something to put on your calendar: The Cascades West Economic Development District’s “Ignite Economic Vitality Summit” (though the team here is a little grumpy that they used the term “Summit”) – it’ll be on Tuesday, November 3rd at the Linn County Expo Center in Albany. The keynote will be Senator Tim Knopp, Chair of the Governor’s Prosperity Council. Paul and the team have been helping to plan this event, and here’s the registration link (registration just opened up today):

 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-cwedd-ignite-economic-vitality-summit-tickets-1993552726871

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • CWEDD – Paul and Sarah have been helping Travis at CWEDD to tighten up their EventBrite listing for the November 3rd convening in Linn County. Paul also prepared updates for next week’s full board meeting and helped edit an outdated “interested parties” Excel spreadsheet to be used in event marketing.
  • Dock Walk – Sarah participated in a dock walk led by Kaety Jacobson this Thursday. Sarah attended as training to give a dock walk later in September and is currently reading the updated Oregon Fisheries report to have accurate data to present. Kaety gave the dock walk to a group visiting from multiple western African countries who work in fisheries management and policy, it was a great group and very informative tour!
      • Val Hoyle’s Team – Paul recently met with two members of Representative Val Hoyle’s team – Cheri Brubaker and Sean Higgins, Val’s legislative director. They discussed the realities of air service in Newport and potential alternatives, as well other locally important priorities (Blue Economy innovation and a Lincoln County Business Incubator, to name a few).
  • Economic Mobility
      • City of Newport Co-Design Team virtual session 1.3 – Leslie joined Allyson at lunch yesterday to onboard Lisa Norton and the Aquarium’s Skye Whitney as Co-Design team members on a virtual meeting. Leslie’s extremely excited that their insights and networks are joining this effort and looks forward to seeing how the group, this process, and the pilot program evolve over the next few months.
  • Entrepreneurship
  • OEN 10/14/26 PubTalk @ Primaltones – Stacie reached out to the two entrepreneurs recommended by OR Coast SBDC, and Paul reached out to Tactical Laser Defense about giving a 5 minute pitch.
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Community & Economic Development Grant Program – Stacie and Paul finalized the proposal for this week’s board meeting. Stacie presented the recommended changes during Thursday’s meeting. 
      • Newport Facade Program – Stacie, Sarah, and Paul met to finalize our cost estimate and Stacie finished editing/formatting the proposal. Sarah read through the responses from the City’s building owner survey. 
  • Oregon Prospector – Sarah did a large update to Oregon Prospector listings this week, she added new ones and made updates to all the existing listings to make sure they were still active and accurate.
  • Community Connecting
      • Juntos en Colaboración September Meeting – The majority of this month’s meeting was spent on Café Aquarium updates, questions, and preparations with the lead planning partners. Conexión Fénix shared multiple upcoming programs, including the Fall 2026 Tacíta de Café series in Newport, again in partnership with the City of Newport. Multiple partners shared updates on other multilingual opportunities, trainings, and programs. This included Victor Villegas sharing his October 6th AI for Small Business training in Spanish (in partnership with Newport Economic Mobility program) at OSU Hatfield Library – fliers and registration link coming soon! Hopefully in time to share at next Friday’s Café Aquarium. 
      • See Leslie’s full update here: September 4, 2026 EDALC CC Weekly Report
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication  Stacie managed social media.
  • Project Work – Sarah began to prepare for the team retreat conversation she will be leading on the 2027 economic summit.
  • Admin – Paul entered the FY26-27 approved budget into QuickBooks (for accurate Budget vs Actuals financial reports) – an annual ritual that always seems to take twice as long as expected.

 

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 long holiday weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

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