Greetings and welcome to Friday!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
This week I began with updating the ART Toledo website because the Chalk the Block event happened last Saturday, it turned out to be an awesome event! Afterwards I talked with Kathy from the county assessor’s office because I asked her about commercial building lease/rent rates for the county last week. She said she wasn’t able to give me any information about that but offered her services for any future questions I might have regarding tax records and properties. She directed me to the property management companies around the area to get some information about monthly rates of $/ square foot of commercial buildings, so I wrote to some local companies asking for the size and monthly cost of any commercial buildings they manage and am waiting to hear back.
Later, I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on the EDALC website. Next, I read over the EDALC 2022-23 strategic priorities that Paul developed and created a scavenger hunt for the ART Toledo events. I also posted on our Facebook page to promote an SBDC course on writing an effective business plan. Lastly, I added to the commercial building/land average monthly cost spreadsheet from recent local listings.
I was off on Wednesday this week because I had an appointment up in Portland.
On Thursday, I attended the ART Toledo meeting in the morning and helped Lisa figure out the map of where all the Chalk the Block participants were located and how the judging sheets aligned with them. Afterwards, I updated the ART Toledo website based on requests from that meeting. I also posted a call for vendors for the next Art, Oysters & Brews event on August 6th. At the end of my day, I looked over the OCVA Oregon Coast Food Systems Map and updated the Blue Sector Network Map with any seafood processors and aquaculture businesses I didn’t have on the spreadsheet yet.
Hope you have an awesome weekend! See you next week 😊
From Paul: as a cool aside – Sarah is solo-cheffing a wedding on Saturday in Philomath – doing a full multi-course meal for over 40 guests – go Sarah go!
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Leslie’s Update:
For those who I have yet to meet, my name is Leslie Palotas (pronounced PAUL-uh-tosh). Some may recognize me as a server at Local Ocean Seafoods (since 2014). Others know me as a part of the Greater Newport Area Vision 2040 effort (since 2017). Or perhaps you may know me from many of the collaborative spaces that my work on the Vision 2040 has allowed me to enter.
I am excited to announce that I am officially the “Community Connector” at EDALC, thanks to the continued support of a multi-year Community Building Grant from The Ford Family Foundation and the City of Newport’s decision to continue funding my Vision 2040-forwarding efforts. The Community Connector position is a year-long pilot project designed to sustain my participation in local, regional, and statewide collaborative groups and projects.
Over the next year, I look forward to sharing updates on and insights into my past and current Community Building efforts. I will be updating the EDALC Board weekly, and I will also be sending Vision 2040-centered monthly updates to The City of Newport, its Vision 2040 Advisory Committee, and the EDALC Board. My goals are to share updates on the wide range of topics related to my work as a Community Connector, include links to related resources, and give action item opportunities for folks to get involved. I’m aiming to create updates that will allow folks to dive deeper into the topics that they are passionate about and learn about interconnected efforts and opportunities that could improve their work or life pursuits.
For a full version of Leslie’s report (which is going out to multiple audiences), here’s a link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dIETAbJt7dxo21mpM6YyxRPZARG2umHKiquL4eVObPk/edit?usp=sharing
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Paul’s Update:
Getting Leslie Up To Speed – Leslie and I met this week to go over logistics of her new role as Community Connector with EDALC. I also received the full funding from Newport for her position. In the next week or so, we’ll get her set up with a new Mac laptop and other software tools. I also talked to Keri at Bryan’s office to get her all set up with payroll. So psyched to have her on board – we’re building one heckuva team!
Blue Economy – This week, I spent some time getting authorized for the Fed’s System for Award Management (SAM). I had to upload a notarized letter to get my SAM account officially linked to the EDALC entity in the system – I have a few more hoops to jump through to re-authorize our entity to receive federal funds. I also worked with Columbia Bank to get things set up for a new account to receive and distribute those funds. We’ll need to get official authorization from the Executive Committee in our next meeting, and then we’ll have that all set up.
Lincoln County Economic Report – I spoke with Shannon Davis this week, to let him know that the funding has been approved for the update to the 2014 Lincoln County Economic Report. It looks like they’ll be starting on that project in the early Fall – their company, the Research Group, is currently wrapping up a study for OCVA (from their USDA grant for improving local consumption of local seafood). Some of the preliminary data from that work was presented at the YBEF annual meeting last Friday.
ART Toledo – The Saturday “Chalk the Block” event was a great success, with over 50 participants completing 43 unique pieces of chalk-art. One of Mayor Cross’s goals was family involvement and there were a ton of families participating. Great job on a new, inaugural event!
Business Support – Both Sarah and I have had the opportunity to work with some potential Lincoln County businesses over the past few weeks. I worked this week to set up a meeting next Tuesday for a potential hotel developer in Newport (there hasn’t been a new hotel built in Newport in 18 years). They are from Ferguson Development (https://www.fergusonhoteldevelopment.com/) – looks like we’ll have a good crew on hand to answer questions (including Mayor Sawyer). I also met with a creative professional today at the office whose art business is going gangbusters and she’s looking at potentially buying a building for studio and gallery space – I’m meeting with her again next week to help her refine some of the financial questions she’ll need to answer for herself.
SBA in Town – Yesterday, I was part of the “economic recovery team” organized by Dave Price to have an in-depth conversation with new SBA regional director Mike Fong. We had a great lively discussion and I came away with a wonderful sense of how well we work together and communicate locally to support our small businesses. We also heard from Erik Knoder of OED on how we’ve recovered all of our jobs lost due to COVID, but we’re still 1,200 payroll jobs short – it points to a fundamental (and perhaps permanent) shift in employment away from traditional jobs – something neither the SBA or OED have a handle on yet.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Tomorrow is the Port of Newport’s Seafood Cook-Off to raise money for the Newport Fisherman’s Wives and other local charities – Susan and I are excited to sample the tasty fresh and LOCAL seafood!
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 🙂