Greetings and welcome to to a damp Friday! Looks like rain this weekend, but it’s certainly needed. I totally digging our new EV and I only walked away from the car three times while it was still on (it beeped angrily at me) – it’s too dang quiet!

Here’s our EDALC update for the week:

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Cindy’s week:

* Continued gathering updated data on LC major employers
* Gathered statistics, meeting minutes and other documentation for EZ application
* Completed EZ application and attachments, except for maps
* Completed June BoD meeting minutes draft
* Put together BoD Member Packet, including updated roster and bylaws
* Provided my usual proofreading, file reducing, brainstorming and strategic planning assistance as needed

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Paul’s week:

Enterprise Zone Re-Designation – On Monday night, I presented to the Newport City Council on EZ re-designation and their supporting resolution to remain a consenting governmental unit. Previously, I worked with Derrick and Spencer to expand Newport’s zone area to include the Lawson property, a 30 acre property on the north side of town (it’s the only “certified shovel ready” industrially-zoned and above-the-tsunami-zone site in this region of the coast), and the council approved the resolution and that addition. In a nice comment after the vote, Mayor Sawyer said that in the first meeting he had with Spencer and I, they asked that the property be added to the EZ, and he was very happy to see us make that happen.

I also reached out to the county’s GIS expert on pulling together the needed shape files for submission to the state and sent out reminders to the remaining governmental units still to vote. Next week, we’ll have votes from the Port of Toledo, the City of Toledo and the Port of Alsea – I’m still waiting on a confirmation from Lincoln County on the date of that resolution vote (it will be one of the Monday BoC meetings in June).

COGs (Council of Governments) Grant Program – I’ve wrapped up initial drafts on the two grant applications we’ll be submitting to the COGs on Tuesday. As part of the process for one of the grants, I wrote up a quick technical specification for a custom WordPress plugin and sought out some developer estimates on the work. Fingers crossed!

On-Boarding New Directors – Over the last two weeks, I was able to have great calls with both Paula and Karen to give them some context of what we’ve been up to over the past year. Cindy should be wrapping up our new Directors digital packet next week, and we’ll get that out to everybody.

ART Toledo Event – The “Art, Oysters and Brews” event in Toledo last Saturday was a huge hit and it felt SO nice to be at an outdoor event with people, music and laughter! Well over 200 folks showed up and they ran out of beer and oysters TWICE and had to re-stock. I managed to pull off a 90 minute set of old-school blues guitar with surprisingly few hiccups and even pulled in some decent tips! Cindy and her husband Roger came, and we got to hang out and share some adult beverages – good times!

SBDC COVID Calls – This week was officially the “last” of Dave Price’s COVID calls – and what an incredible communication tool (with a super high signal-to-noise ratio) those calls have been for over a year! I first hopped on this call in April 2020, almost two months before we arrived in Oregon, and they helped me make connections and learn what makes Lincoln County tick. My guess is that they’ll continue in some way going forward. A huge Huzzah to Dave for putting these together and running the meetings! Wednesday’s call ended with Melissa Murphy (of Business Oregon) making an unexpected and impassioned “shameless plug” for the continued funding of EDALC from Lincoln County – a sentiment that was echoed by quite a few attendees. Thanks Melissa!

Leadership Lincoln – This week was the wrap up of nine months of Leadership Lincoln, and what a great program it was – a truly impactful learning opportunity about all things Lincoln County and an amazing networking forum. I’m so glad I made time for that program.

Local Contact Guide – CWEDD – Mike Corwin (soon retiring fully from the COG/CWEDD) has been working on updating a resource guide for Linn, Benton, Lane, and Lincoln counties relating to economic development as his final deliverable. He called me yesterday for some help updating the guide with the latest Lincoln County resources, and I was pretty amazed that I had an answer to every question he asked (even some pretty obscure ones). It made me realize that over the past year, I really have come to know (and love) this place called Lincoln County!

Co-starters – I had a great meeting this week with Brad Attig of the Foundry Collective – looking at ways we can bring an entrepreneurial development program called “costarters” (developed as part of a Nashville small business renaissance) to Lincoln City. We’ll be looping in Riley Hoagland in the next couple of weeks to see if there is interest, need and some traction – most likely it would start with an event focused on helping businesses evaluate the long-term benefits of COVID pivots there were forced to make (which pivots are worth keeping as part of an on-going business approach?).

Potential EDA Grant – We had a call this morning, facilitated by Rachael Maddock-Hughes, to explore a potential upcoming Lincoln County focused EDA grant application relating to travel, recreation and tourism. EDA is receiving $3B from ARPA funds and 25% is earmarked for that industry sector. The notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is due out in a few weeks. We’ll certainly be a player in that application and EDALC may even be designated the lead applicant (Rachael and I are doing a little research on that), and it could lead to some great resources to bolster the vitality and resiliency of this important economic sector locally.

Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂