Greetings and welcome to Friday! It was a short week, but a busy one! Welcome to June! FYI – today is my one-year-anniversary of serving Lincoln County as the Executive Director of EDALC – we’ve come a long way, and I thank you so much for your trust, support and wisdom!

Here’s our EDALC update for the week:

====
Cindy’s week:

* Research on local business employment levels
* Minutes for May meeting
* Work on master EZ re-designation application
* Board of Directors information/welcome packet
* Combining by-laws and amendments
* Facilitated EZ informational meeting with Paul
* June BoD meeting
* Misc proofing and editing
* EDALC social media posts

====
Paul’s week:

Enterprise Zone Re-Designation – On Thursday, Cindy and I hosted the state-required informational meeting for non-sponsoring taxing bodies and districts. As expected, the meeting was lightly attended, in thanks, partially, to the solid information we sent out before the meeting. I also met with Paul Lawson in the office – he owns the 30 acre “certified shovel-ready” parcel of industrial land across from the PUD – it’s the largest such parcel in the county outside of the tsunami zone. We worked with the City of Newport to include that property in the Enterprise Zone. On Monday night, I’ll be presenting to the Newport City Council as they prepare to approve their consent resolution for the EZ.

ART Toledo – The first “Art, Oysters and Brews” event is happening in Toledo on June 5th (this Saturday) from noon until 5. Here’s a link to the event info online: https://arttoledo.com/?page_id=848

I’ll be playing a few sets of Depression-era acoustic blues from noon-1:30pm – standard turning and two sets in open tunings (G & D) on my National single cone resonator guitar.

COGs (Council of Governments) Grant Program – News week, we’ll finish up the research and write up our two grant applications to this new grant program. We’re doing grants in partnership with the City of Toledo and the City of Newport, and both municipalities have sent me their required into this week. The grant submission deadline is June 15.

Regional ED Practitioner Meeting – We had our monthly meeting of regional economic development practitioners, convened by the COGs and Jenny Glass, their new CEDS ED. Much of the conversation centered around ARPA funding and where it’s being allocated and what projects are in the works. It seems like there is still quite a bit of confusion and the situation is fluid and it’s likely to take center-stage in our conversations over the coming months.

CWEDDS – We had our first meeting of the ad-hoc committee that will evolve into the Cascades West Economic Development District executive committee. Our charge initially is to plan a half-day August working retreat to formally begin regional implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Strategy. Down the road, the executive committee will work to advise the staff and board of the CWEDD in their work to implement that strategy and collaborate with regional EDOs like us.

Blue Economy – Remember Project Big Catch? We’ve gone through two rounds of submissions, and I JUST received a call this afternoon from the site selection firm with a few clarifying questions, and it sounds like we’re certainly in the running, as well as two other Oregon sites (we all win if this lands anywhere in Oregon), and I was able to put in the direct pitch of the knowledge-base at Hatfield and the O2IH work – fingers crossed!

Upcoming – Next week, Cindy and I will lay out our final battle plan for the home stretch of the EZ re-designation. We’ll also take our “Short-Term Plan Towards a Long-Term Solution” that we discussed at yesterday’s board meeting and put it into an operational plan that will guide our work for the coming months.

Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful weekend! Susan and I will be hitting the road – getting to know our totally science-fiction seeming EV – happy silent motoring!

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂