Greetings and welcome to Friday! It looks like another great weekend out there! This week, I had to spend a few more days working from the home office than I’d like – turns out the “ground water” our sump pump was wrestling with is actually a leak in our water service – so many water-related battles this week – with Public Works at Depoe Bay, getting a leak finder service out here and now waiting on a plumber – hopefully sometime next week, we’ll get running water once again!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Project Associate Search – We’re up to eighteen applicants for the position! I’ve had two interviews with very solid candidates – both younger (compared to me). One has an Econ degree and is interested in economic development data analysis, and the other is a young fisheries scientist interested in Blue Economy work and entrepreneurship. I may be close to making a decision on a new teammate as early as next week – wowza, will it be good to have another hand at the oars!
Rural Opportunity Initiative – I spent time this week going over both the CO.STARTERS curriculum and a new startup curriculum developed by Robert Killen of the Lane SBDC. I’ve got a few more follow ups early next week to see if we might want to deliver one of those as part of our ROI work. I also have a followup ROI planning meeting with Dave Price scheduled for next week.
Organizational Funding – I had a great meeting with Toledo this week, and they look to be all-in for EDALC funding (they are looking at $3 per capita annual funding), and probably for both this fiscal year and for the 2022-23 year. I’ll be doing a presentation at an early February council meeting. I’m also working with Alison Robertson to put together the language for Lincoln City, and we’ll be doing a follow up next week.
EDA Good Jobs Challenge (GJC) Grant Program – We’ve continued the work to help bring in restaurant and hospitality business letters of support along the coastal counties of Clatsop, Tillamook and Lincoln for the National Restaurant Association. So far, we’ve got about 25 letters of support in the queue. I’ll also be meeting with the Northwest Oregon Works grant writer early in the week on a GJC grant they are putting together in their service area – a strong core of their grant is maritime workforce development (much in partnership with OCCC). I’ll be working with them to see if there is any of the work we did for BBB that can either expand or strengthen their application (Wes at the EDA thinks that it’ll improve their grant chances).
Broadband Action Team – Yesterday was the monthly BAT meeting. The primary topic was work being done to develop a state-wide data resource pulling in broadband data across the state (using a GeoPartners platform). It’ll help inform and direct the broadened funding that will be coming into Oregon (estimated at around $500 million). The hope is that part of the EDA funds for the feasibility study (currently being transitioned over to CWEDD for administration) can be used to fund this project in our region. Washington state is one of the few states that already has this in place – here’s a link: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/4bcf7c77ecac475eb467e9df0028d05b
ART Toledo – Yesterday was our ART Toledo committee meeting, and we had the pleasure to review three mock-up submissions from the initial muralist – Jeremy Nichols – one of the artists that is part of the Portland Street Alliance. Critiques will go back to the artist for inclusion in another mockup and then it’ll be on to scheduling the Spring painting dates. The first mural will be on the old car dealership building right off of Biz20 when you turn right on Main Street. You can see his online portfolio here: https://www.plasticbirdie.com/
Interesting Meet and Greet – I had a great Zoom call with Caprielle Lewis. She’s a new regional development officer for Business Oregon (the same role that Melissa Murphy has in our area). She served as the economic developer for Sisters for eight years and was a former entrepreneur herself. We had a great conversation on the roles of both creativity and deep listening when practicing rural economic development. She was introduced to me by Erin Borla of the Roundhouse Foundation. It’s awesome growing our regional network of like-minded “crazy and creative” thinkers!
USDA Local Seafood Grant – Late last year, EDALC was one of 17 partners to support an OCVA USDA grant (and the only EDO to do so). That grant was recently awarded, and OCVA secured a $735,200 Local Food Promotion Program grant to serve small to medium sized, Oregon-based, seafood operations. Funding can be used to support them with such things as: market research, packaging design, booth rental and exhibit fees, service and maintenance, value-added product R&D (Up to 10 local producers), cold storage, processing, office/workspace rental, product distribution, etc. Very cool stuff – Laura at Local Ocean is one of the businesses that will be working closely on the implementation of this grant.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
REMINDER: Our next BoD meeting will be Thursday, February 3rd at 3:30pm.
As an FYI, I’ll be cutting out early next Friday and out on Monday – Susan and I are going to be meeting up with some dear friends of ours from the Upper Peninsula – we’re grabbing a picturesque VRBO in Sedona (and trying flying out of Eugene for the first time) for a long weekend and doing an Arizona wine tasting. Looking forward to seeing that desert terrain!
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂