Greetings and welcome to Friday! Wowza – it was one of those weeks! Endless meetings and after-hours work for multiple days in a row, but I think we served Lincoln County well!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
This week began with making posts about the CO.STARTERS and Start Up Success courses on our Facebook page. After which I created a template for EDALC invoices to be used whenever is necessary in the future, and then I created invoices for each the members of the Board we still need membership fees froAt the start of this week, I created a post for the RAIN digital sales & marketing accelerator called RAINmaker on Facebook. Afterwards I started researching and putting together Farmers Market information and locations in the county, which I then added to the Our Communities portion of our website.
I also added a section in the Entrepreneurship page about Farmers Markets which links to the information on the Our Communities page. Next I created a slider of Upcoming Opportunities for Entrepreneurs that I added to the top of the Entrepreneurship page that I will continue to upkeep overtime. I also made an additional post about the RAIN course and tried to boost our interaction by liking lots of Facebook pages. At the end of my week, I worked on the creation of the Blue Economy page and will continue to into next week.
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Paul’s Update:
O2IH – I spent a good amount of time this week outlining what our “out of the gates” (as in “before the funding actually arrives”) work should be in order to prepare for the congressionally directed funding O2IH project. Some of it is looking at our management of the funds, the process of sub-granting out (and what work could and should be ours to do) as well as working to define the specific results we want to see out of this funding.
ROI – This week was the launch of the CO.STARTERS Core class we sponsored with ROI funds (in partnership with Reinventing Rural and co-marketed by the SBDC). The 10 week class will run from 6-9pm every Tuesday for ten weeks. Misty Lambrecht is the facilitator. I’ll try to attend the weeks I can – you never know what you’ll learn. Tuesday evening’s class was a great kick-off, with twelve potential businesses in attendance. The CO.STARTERS course materials are top notch as well as the online portal that provides a discussion forum and other support materials.
Toledo – I was able to give an EDALC update presentation in person at Wednesday’s Toledo City Council meeting, and it was very well received. The City Council voted unanimously to provide $10,000 of funding to EDALC immediately, in addition to budgeting support in the 2022-23 fiscal year. Woo hoo!
Enterprise Zone – I’ve been working with a few of the businesses who have approved EZ applications to prepare their exemption requests. I meet with the county assessor’s office next Tuesday to go over those and any other issues we need to anticipate for the coming year. I also got connected with a new business that looking to set up a support business for Rogue Brewery that would be a several million dollar project and most likely eligible for an EZ abatement.
Sharing Entrepreneurship Stories – I’m still waiting to hear back from Majalise Tolan on my “entrepreneurship homework” but I know she’s been in DC. We did have a special Newport Rotary meeting on Monday evening, exploring new projects, and I wanted to see if the club entrepreneurs might be interested in sharing their start-up and “entrepreneurial thinking” stories with students, and the response was overwhelmingly positive, so hopefully we can help facilitate a win-win connection there.
Potential Business Development – On Wednesday, Dave Price, Ed Dreistadt and myself met with Nikki Sansone of Castle Peak Holdings (https://www.castlepeakholdings.com/). There are a new investment and management group that are looking to purchase unique 65-75 room hotels in vibrant outdoor destination markets. He was doing a scouting tour of the Oregon Coast to see if there are any properties they are interested in (the day before we met, he put in an offer on a hotel in Astoria). We talked him through the coastal visitor experience in Lincoln City, Newport and south county, and reviewed with him several properties his research team advised him to explore. Hopefully, we’ll hear more soon.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
And of course you are all waiting with bated breath – yes, we have INDOOR PLUMBING in our kitchen once again – the marvels of civilized life (though I fell back on old habits and had breakfast in a paper bowl this morning!).
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 🙂