Greetings, happy Friday and welcome to 2023!! I hope you all had a wonderful News Years celebration and are ready for whatever 2023 brings our way!
Sarah and her boyfriend Trystan are still off in Europe – in Switzerland now. Leslie and I held down the fort this week.
Here’s our weekly staff update:
Broadband::
I spent some time working with Solarity (the folks working on our regional EDA-funded broadband planning grant for Benton, Linn and Lincoln Counties) trying to pull together some possible dates and agenda for a Lincoln County “Broadband 101” meeting with regional leaders and stakeholders. We’re shooting for the end of January or early February and are trying to avoid overlapping with governmental council and commission meetings. – Paul
Business Development::
I met twice this week with a real estate developer (and got a chance to tour the property we were discussing). He owns 18 acres adjacent to Lint Slough in Waldport – across from Siuslaw National Forest property, city park property and state property. He’s looking to explore economically sustainable ways to keep the old-growth section of the property available for long-term recreation. We discussed some possible scenarios, and I’ve got permission to take our staff onto the property to check out further options (it’s always good seeing things with your own eyes). – Paul
Community Connecting::
excerpt from “Resource Signal Booting”:
>>>>
How often have you had an idea that could benefit your community, such as: “Someone should ________________________.” (fill in the blank with a brilliant idea you don’t have the knowledge, network, resources, and/or bandwidth to implement).
In our county, there is so much community-improving work going on. Folks are usually too busy doing the work (or too modest to brag) and there are often already folks already working along the lines of your ideas. When you widen your searches to national or international platforms, there are more opportunities to find folks working on parallel efforts.
Does this resonate with you? What are some examples of your discoveries of aligned community-improving ideas out in our community, state, country, or planet? I’d love to hear about them, especially if they’re replicable and scaleable concepts I can share with others.
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As always, here’s the link to Leslie’s awesome full update:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mY3M07FAPE8HAKZvhoFicOYvh9ZlQBqStvyGBLa5dWE/edit?usp=sharing
Community and Economic Development Grant::
Grant applications and scoring the scoring matrix are off to our Board (let me know if you didn’t receive them) and the Impact application is also out to our external SME. We’re looking to have those back to staff by the 3rd week in January (one in already – way to go Lesley!). We were also contacted by Newport Rotary, asking to withdraw their application from consideration (they don’t feel they are quite ready to manage the project). – Paul
Organizational Development::
This week, I spent quite a bit of time in QuickBooks, wrapping up end-of-calendar-year financials (got it balancing to the penny!). I also started a new “board” in Monday.com to help us plan EDALC priorities over the first two quarters of the year (the last two Qs of the 2022-23 fiscal year). Right now, Leslie and I are working on those and we’ll rope Sarah in when she returns stateside next week. – Paul
Rural Opportunity Initiative::
Just before the New Year, I pulled together information for Business Oregon to help them present an annual impact report on the Rural Opportunity Initiative program for state legislators. I also met with Brad Attig (Foundry Collective and Reinventing Rural) about continuing our CO.STARTERS partnership and keeping the CORE classes rolling, adding a few two-day bootcamps and also some youth entrepreneurship programming. – Paul
Upcoming::
Next Monday, Senator Wyden will be holding a Lincoln County Town Hall at the OCCC Newport campus (11am-12:30pm). Paul will be on a Leadership Lincoln Blue Economy panel on Wednesday. Paul will also be meeting with County Administrator Johnson on Thursday. We also have a Friday meeting at the Newport airport to discuss potential opportunities (and challenges) for commercial air service running out of the airport.
Also, a hearty welcome and “Huzzah!” to our newest County Commissioner Casey Miller! He was sworn in earlier this week and tells me he’s hard at work on a folding table in his new office. He’s new to our weekly EDALC distribution list.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Remember, there will be NO EDALC BoD meeting in January, as per past tradition. Our February meeting will be on Thursday, February 2nd (3:30pm, via Zoom) and it will be our grant review meeting.
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂