Greetings and welcome to Friday!
Thanks to the many of you who were able to participate in yesterday’s important board discussion (I’ll reach out and update those who could not attend). I’m very proud to be associated with EDALC and the wonderful, active and dedicated board we have. I’m also very proud of the important and impactful work we do as the Alliance. It does beg the question (paraphrasing a past president): if not us, then who? If not now, then when?
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
====
An update on Cindy’s future time availability:
When Cindy took our Project Associate position, she was looking at it as a semi-retirement position, which fit us both perfectly at 20 hours per week. Going forward, she and her husband have more significant projects left to do on their house than anticipated, which has necessitated Cindy taking on a new full-time remote position starting later this month. She will still be providing vital support hours for the foreseeable future, but not at the 20 hours a week level.
As we look to our future, we may look to bring in another person as support staff (or perhaps be in the position to increase Cindy’s hours), but we need that future and our future needs to be more clear before we take any action. In the meantime, Cindy will continue to support our work with diminished hours. I wish her the absolute best in her new role, and I’m excited that we’ll continue to get excellent work from her and hope soon she can once again join the ranks of the semi-retired!
Cindy’s week:
* Sent reminder for member renewals
* Processed renewals: sent thank you, recorded payment, updated contact info
* Assisted in additional EZ info requested by A. Fish
* Finished LC Stats Infographic
* Worked on July newsletter: Professional Development Opportunities section (new), Member Spotlight
* Started digging through boxes of old files to sort out what to retain and what to shred, while also beginning to set up a clean filing system for retained paper files
Don’t forget to Like our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/EconDevLincolnCounty
====
Paul’s week:
Enterprise Zone Re-Designation – Brad Balk (GIS with Lincoln County) and I worked this week, further clarifying the shapefiles and datasets that will make up our re-designated zone. Much of the time this week was problem solving several changes in tax lots since the last 2014 dataset was generated (some lots were combined, some split). That work should wrap up early next week.
CWEDD CEDS Implementation – This week, the small committee tasked with pulling together stakeholders for a half-day workshop in September to begin the regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy implementation work. We heard a presentation on the “Strategic Doing” methodology for disparate organizations to collaborate on strategic implementation. It was pretty cool to hear how similar this is to “agile” software development that we practiced when I had my software company (in fact, that’s part of what inspired the development of the process). I’m pretty energized to have us sitting at ringside seats for this important regional work.
Oregon Cultural Districts Listening Session – On late Wednesday afternoon, the Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust and Business Oregon held their inaugural Cultural Districts Listening Session. The Oregon coastal communities were first out of the gate in this statewide effort. The listening sessions are aimed at gauging interest in creating a statewide cultural districts program (already proven successful in a dozen states). The ART Toledo work was highlighted as part of the session, and Mayor Cross did a great job emphasizing the important role EDALC has played in the success there.
Regional Resiliency Assessment – This was something I mentioned last week, and this week I received an updated report from Aniko at the University of Oregon – here’s a link to that report:
https://businesslincolncounty.com/file_uploads/EcoRes_County Profile_Lincoln_Final.pdf
Broadband Action Team – We had our monthly Broadband Action Team meeting this week, and it focused on the need for redundancy in major fiber conduits supplying communities (both for mundane disruptions such as a bridge fire and for major disruptions like the Cascadia event). John Franell gave a great introduction to understanding Internet infrastructure. It reminded me of a presentation I used to do at the Midwest Community Development Institute to educate community leaders on ‘net technology. Though John did go much deeper into the function and role of exchanges and peer data sharing, and I learned quite a bit on that subject.
EDALC Operational Overview – This week, Cindy and I wrapped up a four-page Operational Overview document on EDALC – it’s a concise combination of information from our Strategic Summery, Annual Report and other key information. The primary audience we anticipate would be municipalities and larger private sector companies that we need to approach for future funding. You can find that document here:
Click to access EDALC_overviewJuly2021_SMALLFILE.pdf
Investment Attraction – This Wednesday, we had a very productive in-person meeting with potential new owners of the Lincoln City Outlet Mall (this is not for public broadcast at this time, so please keep it on the down-low). It was a real estate development firm specializing in outlet malls across the country (based out of Chicago). In attendance were representatives from Lincoln City (the Mayor, Planning Director, Senior Planner, Alison Robertson), Ed Dreistadt (Explore Lincoln City), Lori Arce-Torres (Lincon City Chamber), Melissa Murphy (Business Oregon), Dave Price, Representative Gomberg, Senator Anderson and myself. We were able to answer many of their questions and also lay out a compelling case for the continued value of the outlet mall (as well as discuss some possible expansion options).
Additional EDALC and County-wide ED Discussions – Before the above meeting, some of us (Dave, Melissa, Alison and Senator Anderson) were able to spend an hour over lunch discussing EDALC, our future funding and the importance of county-wide economic development work. It’s clear that EDALC is a very important partner to the state and Melissa said that she and Sarah Means (of the Governor’s Task Force) will reach out to the commissioners to press that point, as well as emphasize the need for proven and professional economic development work to continue. Dave asked when it was time to ramp up a letter-of-support campaign (it may be upon us!).
I will be meeting with Melissa and Brian Plinski of Business Oregon on Monday morning to discuss the Rural Opportunity Initiative program and if it could become an additional funding source for EDALC.
Lincoln City Business Attraction – I travelled to Lincoln City today to meet with Ed (Explore Lincoln City) and Lori (Chamber) and the Lincoln City Chamber Board (as part of their retreat) to discuss business attraction for Lincoln City – and how we can best collaborate and coordinate efforts.
Interesting Read – On the growth of kelp in the a food sector and as a CSA veggie:
https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/food/how-to-become-an-awesome-vegetarian-cook/
Next Week – On Tuesday, I’ll be giving a presentation to the Lincoln County BizNet Networking group. I also have a meeting with Kristi Peter and some other county folks to talk through the Community and Economic Development Grant program and some new software they plan to use (and some of the improvements we discussed earlier this year). Karen and I will be meeting face to face on Tuesday to talk economic development and functional ways it dovetails into the work and goals of the school district. Looking forward to that conversation!
Upcoming meeting reminders:
Our August Board of Directors meeting will be our first meeting in person! We’ll be meeting at the Port of Newport conference room in Thursday, August 5th at 3:30pm. Details coming soon. Please let me know if there’s something you’d like to see on the agenda.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
One other note: I’ll be out of the office next Friday (so I’ll do the update on Thursday) – we’ve got some dear friends flying in from Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday night for a long weekend, and we plan to have some fun on the coast with them (one is my roommate from freshman year in college)!
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂