Greetings and happy Friday!

Welcome to a new weekly blast we’ll be shooting out to the EDALC Board of Directors every Friday. This short email will keep you up to date on what we’ve been up to the past week, and it’s also a place to share information, online articles, documents and such as they relate to our work here in Lincoln County.

For this inaugural blast, I’m keeping it simple, but we’ll evolve this over the coming weeks and months. If you have ideas or thoughts on how we can report-out better, please let me know.

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Suzan’s week:

* Messages (staff, former director’s email & phone)
* Clean/disinfect office
* Staff meetings w/director
* Provide documents, information and research for director and Curt Abbott
* Sent director’s employment forms to Fitzsimmons with follow-up
* Assist with Spectrum installation issues
* Post office/sort mail/mail checks
* Bank – deposits memberships, enter in QuickBooks
* Process membership renewals in database and xls
* Member invoices
* Phone meeting with Michael Smith

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Paul’s week:

For our first two weeks here, wife Susan and I will be mostly self-quarantining, so Suzan and I tag-teamed at the office this week and will do so again next week. I borrowed a folding table from the office for an ad hoc desk at home since our stuff STILL hasn’t arrived (hopefully next week – fingers crossed!). Also, if you see me wearing the same shirt – that’s why. 🙂

Office – Got my laptop set up, unpacked some of my office stuff (another box is on the moving van), Curt is helping us transition over to Spectrum for speedier office Internet, next week, Suzan and I will be updating to a Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription – cloud based, plus desktop apps.

Branding, URL, etc. – Curt and I have been exploring possible new URLs for the organization – that will be both for the website (a new website is a top priority) and organizational emails. We’re looking at two approaches – potential organizational name change that will be reflected in the URL or more of an “action based” branding done via the URL and website, while keeping the same name. We’ve got some good ideas, but want to generate a few more and then share with the Board. Once we nail down the URL, I’ll get an “official” email address (can’t wait!).

Enterprise Zone – Spent some time this week getting up to speed on the Lincoln County Enterprise Zone, so I can properly process Rogue Brewery’s EZ application for significant new equipment (and some job creation as well – one of the requirements to take advantage of the EZ tax breaks). The next step is a video call with the county assessors’ office, myself and Rogue – necessary before I can approve the application. Then it goes off to the assessor’s office and Business Oregon.

Lincoln County Recovery – Wiley Thompson, the Extension regional director, has been tasked with developing a high level Lincoln County recovery plan. Also, the county has engaged Rachael Maddox-Hughes to assist with “resourcing” (ie grant writing) key aspects of the plan (she is also working with several other neighboring counties in a similar capacity).

There is clearly a role for the EDALC in this recovery plan as an organizational and action leader (in fact, in one of the “not quite for public consumption” slides that Wiley shared with me, EDALC is pencilled in as the lead organization for the Economic Vitality pillar – with a “TBD” next to it). I’ve attached a PDF of the public slide deck of this plan – please look it over (I’m sure some of you have already seen this).

I’ve been tasked to come back to Wiley with some project ideas we could lead (in his word: “hero up”). I’ve already put together over a dozen possibilities that feel like they would sync quite will with an active and engaged future vision for the EDALC, but I want to hear back from the board first – so shoot me any thoughts and ideas you might have.

Broadband – I connected with Racheal Maddox-Hughes to get up to speed with the Broadband Action Team (BAT) efforts and participated in a BAT meeting on Thursday. Looks like the $10M state eBoard money cannot be utilized for a feasibility study, as the team had initially hoped. Now it looks like it might need to be a direct EDA CARES application from the region.

Meeting and Greeting – One of my most important tasks out of the gates is to connect with local leaders and partners and to do some serious listening and learning. I crafted a letter of introduction to the county commissioners and sent that off and am working to set up individual meetings with the commissioners to hear from them. The first is scheduled with Commissioner Hall on Monday morning.

I’ll also be reaching out to our board (if you haven’t heard from me yet, you will!), local Chamber directors and local government leaders.

Also in the queue are state and regional resources, including Business Oregon and Oregon RAIN. I also reached out to Jesse Dolin about the Oregon Coast Trail project.

Keeping all of this straight during these listening sessions will take some work, so I built a contact management tool in Trello (an online digital kanban board) to manage my contacts, connections and what I’ve learned.

Lay of the Land – Wife Susan and I have also been out and exploring Lincoln County. We trekked north and then took county road 229 back through Siletz (wow, are some of those woods amazing!). We also trekked south past Yachats – also breathtaking. We’ve also been exploring the Nye Beach area and talking to local business owners (both to get to know them and get their take on the local economy). I’m pleased to report that Susan is beyond ecstatic with moving here – she absolutely loves it (and so does dog Stella!).

2020-21 Budget – Michael and I had a WebEx this week and one of the things we talked about was the budget for next fiscal year. Suzan and I will be working on a draft budget (we’re going to have to do some educated guesses on a few things) and plan to have a draft ready for a scheduled call with Michael next Thursday.

Have a great weekend and stay safe!

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂