Greetings and welcome to Friday! Can you believe that it’s almost August? Holy cow, where does the time go?!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Enterprise Zone Re-Designation – I’ll start us off with some AWESOME news – I just got the word this morning that our Lincoln County Enterprise Zone was officially re-designated by the State of Oregon! Woo hoo! That was a lot of work, and we still have a few EZ logistics to wrap up before year’s end, but that powerful business incentive (in a new and improved model) is live and active. Now it’s time to start marketing that vital tool.
Newsletter – We got our July newsletter out this morning, and I think it’s our best to-date. I’m getting a good feel for balancing news, information and actionable learning. Kudos to Cindy for her second installment on social media for small businesses. I received this nice comment from Dave Price at the SBDC: “Wow! Great newsletter. Wonderful mix of practical, actionable, and informational. Nice Easter egg at the bottom … your operational overview is really impressive. Great stuff.”
Regional Opportunity Initiative – Next Monday at 11am we’ll have a virtual meeting, set up by Melissa Murphy from Business Oregon, to discuss the Rural Opportunity Initiative program and how it might look here in Lincoln County. Melissa invited numerous county stakeholders to the table, and I’m eager to learn more about the logistics of the program and what the level of enthusiasm and engagement is. I’ve started pulling together some notes and a rough draft of an application for EDALC to be prepared for the Monday conversation.
Georgia Pacific – I had lunch meeting this week with CJ Drake of GP at Clearwater (and I just learned that they closed today due to a COVID outbreak – yipes!). We talked about their Juno project (which has created over 20 jobs to date, both at GP and Dahl), EDALC (and our funding challenges) and east-county economic development. He’ll be setting up a private tour for me in the coming weeks of the plant and the Juno project. We’ll also be putting together an east-county economic development luncheon – as a forum to casually discuss needs, opportunities and challenges – and GP will take care of all of the catering expenses.
EDA Grant Opportunity – Susan and I travelled to Corvallis last night for a dinner meeting with Rachael Maddock-Hughes to discuss the just-dropped EDA NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity) for the new Travel, Tourism & Outdoor Recreation grant program. Rachael will be doing a little research and also reach out to the EDA to discuss the opportunity, and if it looks favorable, we’ll be working with her and local stakeholders to craft a grant submission through EDALC.
CWEDD Grant Projects – Newport Project – This week, I selected our software developer for our WordPress Plugin project – we selected One Design Development out of California to do the work. Last week, I sent them the final functional specification, and they came in on budget and have some great references. I’ll be setting up the development site next week and we should see our first prototype in a little over a month.
Mini Speaking Tour – I’ll be diving into the world of Rotary over the next two weeks, speaking at the Newport club next Thursday and at the Lincoln City club on Wednesday the 11th. I’m nearly done with my “22nd Century Economic Development: What Next Generation Economic Development Needs to Look Like” presentation, and it’ll serve as a solid baseline for us to talk about economic development well into the future.
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.
Meeting location:
Port of Newport, 2120 SE Marine Science Dr, Newport
It is located on South Beach near the Port’s recreational marina – the building where people register for the RV Park.
I’ll be sending out digital meeting packets early next week.
We will also be running a Zoom link from my laptop, if you can’t make it in person:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09
Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK
County Commissioner’s Meeting:
*note – this is a change in the original date*
We’ll be delivering an update to the County Board of Commissioners on Monday, August 9th at 3pm. In that meeting, the commissioners will also discuss splitting off a chunk of the Community and Economic Development Grant funds to fund a single larger-scale project in addition to the traditional smaller projects.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Also, please don’t forget to Like our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/EconDevLincolnCounty
As a fun aside, we had a great time hosting our dear friends Jim and Ann from Madison last weekend. We did OSU Extension’s “Shop at the Dock” program last Friday. What an amazing and informative program that was, getting to walk Port Dock Five and learn about all the fishing boats, our local fisheries and the logistics of all the ways the fishermen catch the seafood.
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂